In NASA’s Sterile Areas, Plenty of Robust Bacteria

From the New York Times By WARREN E. LEARY:

Researchers have found a surprising diversity of hardy bacteria in a seemingly unlikely place — the so-called sterile clean rooms where NASA assembles its spacecraft and prepares them for launching. Samples of air and surfaces in the clean rooms at three National Aeronautics and Space Administration centers revealed surprising numbers and types of robust bacteria that appear to resist normal sterilization procedures, according to a newly published study. The findings are significant, the researchers report, because they can help reduce the chances of stowaway microbes contaminating planets and other bodies visited by the spacecraft and confounding efforts to discover new life elsewhere. Identifying and cataloging what microbes might survive sterilization is important in interpreting results of sampling missions to other planets, scientists said. If similar microbes turn up in alien samples, researchers could disregard the results as contamination and not evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Thanks to Xnewsman for the post