On Mars, microbes could hitch a ride on wind-borne dust
Experiments in Chile’s Atacama Desert point to a potential method of transportation for microbes on Mars—whether they exist there already, or we introduce them.
BY KATHERINE J. WU THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019
Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the driest places in the world, with some areas receiving less than 0.05 inches of rain each year. Image Credit: Jiann Ho, iStock
But if microscopic Martians do exist, they might have an absolutely metal way of traversing the red planet’s inhospitable plains.
Using Chile’s Atacama Desert as a proxy for Mars, a team of researchers has collected data that suggests bacteria, fungi, and other single-celled organisms may hitch rides on wind-borne dust to colonize extreme environments, sometimes from dozens or hundreds of miles away. The study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, underscores the remarkable ability of single-celled creatures to thrive in some of the world’s harshest habitats. And if the results hold true for Mars, they may give the search for extraterrestrial life something of a second wind.
Regardless of the status of life on modern Mars, the findings also raise concerns about something far less theoretical: The possibility that hardy foreign microbes, ferried in by spacecraft or astronauts from Earth, could use this dust-surfing strategy to disseminate over the red planet’s surface.
“This is a tantalizing first look at the types of organisms that could be transported on dust by wind…in one of the best known and best studied Mars analogs on Earth,” says NASA Planetary Protection Officer Lisa Pratt, who was not involved in the study. “[That] brings up concerns about contamination, and how we might inadvertently bring terrestrial microbes to another destination.”
More:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/mars-microbes-wind-dust/
