Curiosity's drill could contaminate Mars

[n2doc]

For all the hopes NASA has pinned on the rover it deposited on Mars last month, one wish has gone unspoken: Please don't find water.

Scientists don't believe they will. They chose the cold, dry equatorial landing site in Mars' Gale Crater for its geology, not its prospects for harboring water or ice, which exist elsewhere on the planet.

But if by chance the rover Curiosity does find H2O, a controversy that has simmered at NASA for nearly a year will burst into the open. Curiosity's drill bits may be contaminated with Earth microbes. If they are, and if those bits touch water, the organisms could survive.

The possible contamination of the drill bits occurred six months before the rover's launch last Nov. 26. The bits had been sterilized inside a box to be opened only after Curiosity landed on Mars.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mars-contaminate-20120910,0,365701.story

[Ezlivin]

1. Mars has been flinging rocks at us for centuries!

You know what they say about payback.

[xxqqqzme]

2. I was wondering about

contamination last week, after looking at some Mars/Curiosity pictures. It just seemed like a monumental undertaking to insure everything traveling to Mars was sterile. Now reading this....monumental f*ckup.

[JohnnyRingo]

3. There's the plot for the next Star Trek movie.

Life that spawned and evolved over hundreds of years because of the Martian radiation from a contamination we accidentally caused. The evil life form that we planted could be remnants of a long since forgotten politician's DNA:

"Star Wars XI: There They Go Again".

[n2doc]

4. Shatner vs. Eastwood, I can see it now n/t

[Odin2005]

5. Mars has likely already been contaminated by impacting chunks of terrestrial rock.

We get hit by chunks of the Moon and Mars launched out into space by impact events all the time, Mars is certainly not immune.