Preventing biological contamination is sensible, but NASA also requires it because of the International Space Treaty, which says exploration must be done in a way that avoids cross-contamination of other celestial bodies or adverse changes in Earth’s environment. One reason is that we wouldn’t want to discover life on Mars only to realize we’d brought it there ourselves! And of course, we never want to bring anything back to Earth that could be harmful to terrestrial life. Equally important is that we don’t bring extraterrestrial microorganisms or products of an extraterrestrial biological process (if they exist) back to Earth. The role of Planetary Protection is to ensure we limit the contamination risk of microbes and organic molecules, or any remnant of terrestrial life, to other planets from Earth.
Johns)īefore we examine what spores are, it’s helpful to understand why we care when it comes to Planetary Protection. It produces toxins that act as natural insecticide and is used to control insects that damage crops. Bacillus thuringiensis is common in soils.
