Scientist Says Life on Mars May Exist, Explains Where it May Have Come From

As the scientist explained, future manned missions to Mars will inevitably result in terrestrial microbes arriving on the Red Planet.

While scientists strive to determine if life exists on Mars, Christopher Mason, a professor at Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medicine, has suggested that some lifeforms might have hitchhiked to the Red Planet on spacecraft from Earth.

In an article published by the BBC, Mason explained that, despite NASA engineers from the Jet Propulsion Labs employing “strict and thorough” protocols while assembling spacecraft, in order to “minimise the number of organisms that might inadvertently hitchhike on a space mission,” some organisms may have survived the clean rooms and even the journey to Mars.

Mason also mentioned evidence of microbes that “have the potential to be problematic during space missions.”

The scientist pointed out that the probability of “some fragments of microbial, and maybe human DNA” being present on Mars emerged since the first Soviet probes reached the planet in 1971, so even if we do eventually detect life on Mars, there’s a chance that it will be of terrestrial origin.

And future manned missions to Mars, Mason added, will inevitably result in the arrival of terrestrial microbes that exist on and within human bodies on the Red Planet.

Sourse: sputniknews.com