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Space

Ryugu Asteroid Sample Rapidly Colonized By Terrestrial Life (phys.org) 24

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Phys.org: Researchers from Imperial College London have discovered that a space-returned sample from asteroid Ryugu was rapidly colonized by terrestrial microorganisms, even under stringent contamination control measures. In the study, [...] researchers analyzed sample A0180, a tiny (1 x 0.8 mm) particle collected by the JAXA Hayabusa 2 mission from asteroid Ryugu.

Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened in nitrogen in a class 10,000 clean room to prevent contamination. Individual particles were picked with sterilized tools and stored under nitrogen in airtight containers. Before analysis, the sample underwent Nano-X-ray computed tomography and was embedded in an epoxy resin block for scanning electron microscopy. Rods and filaments of organic matter, interpreted as filamentous microorganisms, were observed on the sample's surface. Variations in size and morphology of these structures resembled known terrestrial microbes. Observations showed that the abundance of these filaments changed over time, suggesting the growth and decline of a prokaryote population with a generation time of 5.2 days.

Population statistics indicate that the microorganisms originated from terrestrial contamination during the sample preparation stage rather than being indigenous to the asteroid. Results of the study determined that terrestrial biota had rapidly colonized the extraterrestrial material, even under strict contamination control. Researchers recommend enhanced contamination control procedures for future sample-return missions to prevent microbial colonization and ensure the integrity of extraterrestrial samples. Another factor in gathering contamination-free sampling is that everything used to collect extraterrestrial material originates on a planet awash in microbial life.

Ryugu Asteroid Sample Rapidly Colonized By Terrestrial Life

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  • microbes previously on the sample (if any) could have escaped from the lab to cause 'the final covid'?
    • by jiriw ( 444695 )

      Not unlikely any microbe that would naturally evolve from outside of this solar system would exhibit such a degree of compatibility with anything alive on this planet... but otherwise.. I guess it would theoretically be possible. However, there are labs in this world working with highly infective and devastatingly ill-making earth-borne microbes. And as long as all protocols are followed correctly, they seem to hold up, until now.... at least, we're still here, aren't we?

      • by Anonymous Coward
        Any extraterrestrial microbes would not likely be able to infect us in the "traditional" sense, i.e. hijacking our cellular machinery to turn them into virus factories. However there is nothing to stop them from from finding our moist organic nutrient-filled bodies delicious and simply consuming them for resources and reproducing via exponential mitosis. This is exactly what the earth organisms did to that asteroid, there is no reason it cannot work in the opposite direction. This would likely result in
        • Current natural virus has evolved in the same environment to their hosts for hundreds of thousands of years and a slight percentage become a threat to their hosts once in that course of events. The odds that something comes in from interstellar space that is more virulent and affecting humans in a non trivial more way than the daily load of Rhinovirus is billions and billions to one. Life on earth is a millions to one shot, that something goes from a life full planet, to another life filled find a com
          • I agree. Any microbes that exist on the asteroid are going to be evolved to survive the asteroid environment. IE lack of atmosphere, radiation, the materials present, etc...
            Odds are they'd be poisoned by free oxygen, not have any metabolic paths for carbon, etc... The very environment of earth would be hostile to them.

  • by SkyMunky ( 249995 ) on Thursday November 28, 2024 @06:22AM (#64977279)

    Life...uh...finds a way

  • Space? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cheaphomemadeacid ( 881971 ) <cheaphomemadeacidNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday November 28, 2024 @06:58AM (#64977313) Journal
    We might have to study these kind of mission in space as it would be easier/possible to keep the contamination at bay
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It also brings into question efforts to decontaminate our probes. It's possible we have already contaminated other worlds with Earth microbes.

    • We might have to study these kind of mission in space as it would be easier/possible to keep the contamination at bay

      It seems to me like it would be a ton harder. You would still need the class 10,000 clean room, it's not like you could just open it up on the ISS. So you would have to launch the whole clean room to space along with everything else to make it a space station like power, cooling, docking, life support, etc. All this stuff would need to be sterilized because it was made on Earth, which has microbes EVERYWHERE. You then need to integrate these structures into a rocket and launch them through the dirty atm

      • by vux984 ( 928602 )

        Would you need a class 10,000 clean room if you simply did it directly in the hard vacuum of space? perhaps inside of a basic enclosure to block radiation etc, but essentially rely on 'space' to keep things clean.

        Also, surely the microbes need 'food/fuel'; in the vacuum of space, there's not going to be much oxygen, or anything else too subsist on, even if the microbes are 'present' perhaps they'd be unable to actively colonize or multiply, etc?

        Doing anything in space is 10x harder and 1000x more expensive

        Except perhaps creating a vacuum that isn't crawling with life.

    • Class 10000 clean room is clean, but not all that clean - I'm surprised they used it for something that absolutely requires pristine conditions. Fresh air in a forest is 10k-100k particles naturally.

      Class 10000 means it allows TEN THOUSAND particles per cubic foot, or about 1 per 3 cubic cm.
      Class 1 clean rooms are actually fairly COMMONLY used in semiconductor manufacture, Japan certainly would have had ample access to such.

      A quick Google search says there are 10 high class cleanrooms in JP, of which 4 mee

  • by Jedi Holocron ( 225191 ) on Thursday November 28, 2024 @08:24AM (#64977371) Homepage Journal

    is(are) clearly an invasive lifeform(s).

  • It does seem like a nitrogen atmosphere in a clean room and sterilized utensils would be an adequate defense against contamination but bacterial spores are "extremely stable and can survive for very long time to the absence of water and nutrients, to the presence of lytic enzymes, toxic chemicals, UV irradiation and to extremes of temperature and pH".
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]

    I'm curious to know what "enhanced contamination control procedures" they would use in the future. Presumably they would want

    • The space probe that collected the sample wasn't so carefully cleansed. So the sample may have been contaminated in space, from the probe and the little buggers woke up once they got to the comfy lab back on earth. The final sentence of TFS says this indirectly.

      It sounds like a hard engineering problem. I'd love to work on that.

  • "Population statistics indicate that the microorganisms originated from terrestrial contamination during the sample preparation stage rather than being indigenous to the asteroid. Results of the study determined that terrestrial biota had rapidly colonized the extraterrestrial material, even under strict contamination control." Not very strict of a control, if they contaminated it prior to even collecting it! Not very professionally scientific either. Unless I am misinterpreting something, which is not ou
    • It's very, very hard to prevent microbe contamination on Earth. Heck, even the ISS is contaminated. Microbes are very good at getting everywhere.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. - Voltaire

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