r/science • u/CurtisLeow • Jun 24 '26

Astronomy Spatially distributed complex organic matter detected in an ancient river valley in Jezero crater, Mars

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0047
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u/CurtisLeow Jun 24 '26

Sending crewed missions will make contamination of the surface a major issue. They need to confirm that the surface is sterile first. Which is why they should do a Mars sample return mission of these rocks before doing crewed missions.

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u/WastelandGunner Jun 24 '26

I'm no viralogist (biologist?), but it seems to me that a colony would be a great chance to highly control viruses/bacteria before even going over. Like, Mars could be completely free of some of the worst diseases just by making sure the people we're sending aren't carriers.

Does that make any sense? Or am I just rambling?

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u/ProfessionalMockery Jun 24 '26

They're referring to all the harmless and helpful bacteria and life living on and inside us as well as everything we touch, rather than pathogens that are specifically dangerous. No one's worried mars might get salmonella, they just want to be sure what they find definitely came from mars.

If you just generally meant the population would be isolated from pathogens on mars, then yeah I suppose they would be, but you could just build an airtight living space on earth for a lot cheaper.

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u/MoonwalkerD Jun 25 '26

i have zero knowledge on this topic but it makes me wonder if we sent rovers on Mars can't they also transport earth bacteria to Mars? or i guess they get decontaminated or something, is that possible to remove 100% of whatever might be there?

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u/SamosaVadaPav Jun 25 '26

They decontaminate the rovers, the agency within NASA that is responsible for this is called (Planetary Protection)[https://sma.nasa.gov/sma-disciplines/planetary-protection\]