What if we bring back life from Mars?
By Erik English | October 5, 2023
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission is a decade long project to bring back rocks and dust samples from Mars to Earth. The mission itself will be the most complicated robotic space mission ever undertaken, and bringing the samples back to Earth is only part of the challenge. Once on Earth, the samples will need to be treated as if they contain life-threatening pathogens. The samples will be stored in a maximum containment lab being built near the landing site in the Utah desert.
In a new report for the Bulletin, Valerie Brown writes about the challenges of the mission and how it fits into NASA’s history of space exploration and sample collection. So for our latest video, we decided to animate the journey from Mars to Earth to help illustrate the challenge and danger ahead. Check it out, and consider subscribing to our channel on YouTube too.
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Erik English
Erik English is an associate multimedia editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He has worked at the International Atomic Energy... Read More
