NASA's Perseverance rover took this picture next to a rock where it drilled for samples. NASA wants to bring the samples back to Earth.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSThe space agency needs to figure out how to protect our home planet from any alien microbes that might hitch a ride before it can bring dirt and rocks from Mars back to Earth.
The agency is holding public meetings this week and looking for feedback on its plan to land a spaceship in Utah in the early 20th century.
"Maybe this is the most important environmental assessment that humans have ever done," says Peter Doran, a geology professor at Louisiana State University.
There is a chance that there is life on the surface of Mars, but it is very unlikely, says Doran, who also serves on an international committee devoted to planetary protection.
Scientists would be able to run extensive lab tests to look for evidence of whether or not Mars was once a place to call home.
It will cost billions of dollars to accomplish a mission that has been talked about for decades. No one has figured out how to handle Martians. How to contain any potential microbes? What features are needed for the secure lab that will house the rocks?
He explains that until recently, there hasn't been a lot of focus on the details of the sample return facility.
NASA and the European Space Agency are collaborating on a plan to launch a set of spaceships as soon as 2027 and 2028. The Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars last year, has been drilling cylindrical samples of rock to seal them inside metal tubes.
Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University who is part of the Perseverance rover team, says they have eight samples on board.
He says that the rover is exploring a crater on Mars that appears to have once had water. Occasionally, the rover drills out a small core of rock. The core is sealed into one of the metal sample tubes.
Bell says a long-running joke among planetary scientists is that Mars sample return has always been 10 years off.
I'm optimistic, right? Bell says that they are getting them ready to be picked up.
A container full of the previously collected rock samples would be launched into the air around the planet under a plan being worked out by NASA. The container could be engulfed by another container, like a big fish eating a little fish, to keep anything that had touched Mars inside.
The container is carrying rock samples that are being blasted off the surface of Mars.
NASA/JPL-CaltechBrian Clement, a planetary protection expert with NASA, said that the seal would be heat-sterilized after it was sealed.
We are applying very high heat. He says it will be in excess of 900 degrees.
This is technically challenging, because scientists want to keep the rock samples cold, as they were on Mars.
The sanitized container would be put into another container, which would be sealed and put into the Earth-entry vehicle, which would land in the Utah desert without a parachute.
Clement refers to it as a 90-mile-an-hour fastball, where the landing site is the mitt.
Some people find the proposal disturbing.
Barry DiGregorio, a science writer, says that they are going to bring it back and have it come back to the Utah desert.
You could imagine what would happen if you had organisms from another planet.
Clement says that multiple panels of scientific experts have weighed in on the risk of Mars sample return over the years and all agree that the potential hazard is very low.
Clement says that NASA is taking a conservative approach.
Bell is not worried about the possibility of Martian germs escaping into the environment and causing problems or disease, despite the fact that many science fiction fans are concerned about that.
Bell says that any life on Mars would not be suited to survive on Earth, as it would have evolved in a different environment.
The main danger of a leak is that it would cause the Martian samples to be contaminated with Earth material. Bell says that the samples will need to be opened in high-tech facilities that can replicate the environment and atmosphere of Mars.
While the surface of Mars is currently dry, very cold and blasted with harsh ultraviolet radiation, LSU's Doran says it's still possible that microbes could live in shielded cavities and holes or under the dust.
The possibility is not zero according to Doran, although he thinks it is highly unlikely.
He says that they have to protect Earth until they know what's there.
In the 1990s, a survey was done to find out what the public thought about bringing home Martian rocks. The public perception of biological risks associated with a Mars sample return mission is not seen as a large risk compared to other technological and environmental risks.
Margaret Race, one of the researchers involved in that 1990s study, says that public perception might be different now because of the coronaviruses.
Race pointed out that people will want to know where that lab will be if you bring it down in Utah.
She says she can expect a lot of questions.
Even with many details left to be worked out, the prospect of a Martian rock being brought to Earth is just thrilling for scientists like Bell, who has studied Mars for years.
Bell wants to see the insides of red dust and the robotic eyes that have been looking at this world for so long.
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