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Appropriate protection of Mars

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Geological and biological processes have eliminated all but the faintest traces of our earliest ancestors on Earth. To understand the origin of life, we must investigate other planets — but we can find what we seek only if we do not contaminate them with Earth life first.

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Figure 1: A Viking lander, enclosed in a bioshield designed to protect against the re-contamination by microbes after heat treatment, is loaded into an oven at the Kennedy Space Center to undergo full-system sterilization.

© NASA

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Author notes

  1. John D. Rummel is the Chair of the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection and is at the Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Catharine A. Conley is the NASA Planetary Protection Officer with the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC 20546, USA,

    Catharine A. Conley & John D. Rummel

Authors
  1. Catharine A. Conley
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  2. John D. Rummel
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Correspondence to John D. Rummel.

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Conley, C., Rummel, J. Appropriate protection of Mars. Nature Geosci 6, 587–588 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1908

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