{"id":38629,"date":"2022-11-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?p=38629&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=38629"},"modified":"2022-11-25T12:36:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T12:36:33","slug":"ancient-microbes-may-survive-mars-radiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2022\/11\/11\/ancient-microbes-may-survive-mars-radiation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient microbes may survive Mars radiation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h5 class=\"has-text-align-center\"><span class=\"has-inline-color has-ccp-primary-dark-color\">BULLETIN<\/span><\/h5>\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center sans-serif article-subhead\">Ancient microbes may survive Mars radiation <\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center Intro\"><span style=\"\">The discovery could lead to tighter planetary protection <\/span><\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"no-tts wp-block-image size-large article-in-image photo is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"no-tts wp-image-38631\" srcset=\"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Ultra-durable Mars bacteria pose potential risks for Earth <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"article-full-body sans-serif\"><strong>Bacteria could survive <\/strong>Mars\u2019s radiation much longer than previously thought, a new study has found. Past experiments that subjected Deinococcus radiodurans \u2013 nicknamed Conan the Bacterium due to its hardiness \u2013 to the radiation it would experience just below the Martian surface found it could survive one million years. However, the new experiments froze and dried the bacteria, as would probably be the case on Mars, and buried it 10 metres down. Here it could withstand 280 million years of radiation. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"article-full-body sans-serif\">Though the find raises hopes of finding life on Mars, it does mean preventing cross-contamination is even more critical. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"article-full-body sans-serif\">\u201cWe concluded that terrestrial contamination of Mars would essentially be permanent \u2013 over timeframes of thousands of years,\u201d says Brian Hoffman from Northwestern University. \u201cLikewise, if microbes evolved on Mars, they could be capable of surviving until the present day. That means returning Mars samples could contaminate Earth.\u201d<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northwestern.edu\">www.northwestern.edu<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The discovery could lead to tighter planetary protection <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5673,"featured_media":38631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"","purple_seq_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"","purple_source_article":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"","purple_source_issue":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"December-2022","purple_external_id":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"December-2022-dc83661d-1a41-4785-89ee-ce4d068a3177","purple_issue_code":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086559||","purple_android_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.211","purple_ios_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.211","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[14],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"ella.copping-howard@immediate.co.uk","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/ella-copping-howardimmediate-co-uk\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview.jpg",1600,1200,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-768x576.jpg",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-1024x768.jpg",800,600,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview-1536x1152.jpg",1536,1152,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/11\/Unknown_preview.jpg",1600,1200,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ella.copping-howard@immediate.co.uk","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/ella-copping-howardimmediate-co-uk\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The discovery could lead to tighter planetary protection","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38629"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38632,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38629\/revisions\/38632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}