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Aliens and Idols

机译:外星人和偶像

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Corey Powell's May "Out There" column discussed the search for alien life. "Why is E.T. MIA?" suggests sending a probe to "simply" take a few passes through the ejecting plume of a moon of Saturn and bring back samples to Earth labs to look for alien life. What if the sample contains a pathogen that wiped out life on Saturn? Exposure to such things is a high price to pay to satisfy curiosity.That's a very valid concern. Fortunately, it is one that people at NASA have thought about extensively; in fact, NASA has a whole office devoted to the issue of "planetary protection" from contamination. The office establishes rules both to make sure we don't pollute other worlds and to ensure that we do not inadvertently release dangerous alien material here on Earth. You can see some of the NASA guidelines here: planetary protection.nasa.gov/categories. Another reason for confidence is that astronomers are coming to realize that asteroid impacts efficiently scatter material from planet to planet on the timescale of millions of years. If there were dangerous microbes on Mars (or even Enceladus), they probably reached Earth through natural processes long ago. That is no reason to let down our guard, but it does suggest that the risk of contamination is probably low.
机译:科里·鲍威尔(Corey Powell)的《可能在外面》(May There Out)专栏讨论了寻找外星生命的方法。 “为什么是EIA MIA?”建议发送一个探测器以“简单地”经过土星卫星喷出的羽流,然后将其带回地球实验室以寻找外星生命。如果样品中含有能消灭土星生命的病原体怎么办?暴露于此类事物是满足好奇心的高昂代价,这是一个非常合理的担忧。幸运的是,这是美国国家航空航天局(NASA)的人们已经广泛考虑的一种方法。实际上,美国国家航空航天局(NASA)的整个办公室致力于解决“行星保护”免受污染的问题。该办公室制定了规则,以确保我们不会污染其他世界,并确保我们不会在不经意间将危险的外来物质释放到地球上。您可以在此处查看一些NASA指南:行星保护.nasa.gov / categories。充满信心的另一个原因是,天文学家逐渐意识到,小行星撞击可以在数百万年的时间尺度上有效地将物质从一个星球散布到另一个星球。如果火星(甚至是土卫二)上存在危险的微生物,它们很可能是很久以前通过自然过程到达地球的。这没有理由放下我们的戒备,但这确实表明污染的风险可能很低。

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    《Discover》 |2014年第7期|6-6|共1页
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