[HN Gopher] Rapid colonization of a space-returned Ryugu sample ...
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       Rapid colonization of a space-returned Ryugu sample by terrestrial
       microorganism
        
       Author : f1shy
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2024-11-25 18:19 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
        
       | bastih wrote:
       | Color me a bad reader: what does this mean? The abstract pretty
       | much leaves me in the abstract.
        
         | jcoc611 wrote:
         | > The presence of terrestrial microorganism within a sample of
         | Ryugu underlines that microorganisms are the world's greatest
         | colonizers and adept at circumventing contamination controls.
         | The presence of microorganisms within space-returned samples,
         | even those subject to stringent contamination controls is,
         | therefore, not necessarily evidence of an extraterrestrial
         | origin.
         | 
         | Basically that preventing terrestrial contamination of
         | extraterrestrial samples is super tough, and in the specific
         | case of Ryugu the study concludes that contamination did occur.
        
         | swagasaurus-rex wrote:
         | The samples mined from the Ryugu asteroid were contaminated by
         | earth microorganisms some time between sampling and analysis.
         | That makes it hard to tell the difference between potentially
         | alien microorganisms and just regular earth microorganisms
        
           | jfengel wrote:
           | Which is why I'd just as soon we waited a few extra decades
           | before landing people on Mars. We're chock full of bacteria
           | and they will surely get out. Unlike robots we can't be
           | sterilized.
           | 
           | Once we can be certain that there is no native life, go nuts.
           | Until then it's an irreplaceable bit of data.
        
             | pavel_lishin wrote:
             | Even robots cannot be sterilized; we've likely already
             | infected Mars with some form of life. (Although, it's not
             | likely that it's gonna spread far - it's a wildly hostile
             | world.)
        
         | plxxyzs wrote:
         | Basically microorganisms were able to grow in a sterile
         | asteroid sample faster than previously anticipated. So just
         | because there are signs of life in a recently fallen meteorite
         | is less likely to mean there are space bacteria on it.
        
         | theamk wrote:
         | they got asteriod samples, and turns out that Earth bacteria
         | grow great on them. It's a problem because from now on, if a
         | evidence of life is discovered on sapce samples there is always
         | a suspicion it could be contamination.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42268396
        
       | downrightmike wrote:
       | Okay, refine procedures and try again
        
       | londons_explore wrote:
       | > opened in nitrogen in a class 10,000 clean room
       | 
       | Since these samples were collected in a vacuum, doesn't it make
       | sense to keep them in a vacuum, at least for science that
       | requires the smallest possible amount of contamination?
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-28 23:00 UTC)