NASA's cleanrooms rank among the cleanest spaces on Earth, and for good reason — these sterile spaces are fortified to prevent even the hardiest Earth microbes from hitching a ride to other worlds aboard NASA spacecraft. Yet even in the most sterile places on Earth, life finds a way.
Now, experts plan to test these newfound bugs inside a "planetary simulation chamber" that could reveal whether these microbes, or ones with similar adaptations, could survive a trip through space to Mars, possibly contaminating the alien worlds on arrival.
