Scientists have identified 26 new species of bacteria in samples taken from the clean room where NASA's Phoenix Mars lander was located in 2007. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/Lockheed Martin)
A new study has found that dozens of previously unknown species of “extremophile” bacteria have been found in a NASA clean room used to quarantine the Mars lander before its successful launch to the Red Planet more than 17 years ago.
Some of these hardy microorganisms may have the ability to survive in the vacuum of space. However, there is no evidence that the spacecraft or the surface of Mars have been contaminated.
NASA's Phoenix Mars lander landed on the Red Planet on May 25, 2008, and operated for 161 days (156 Martian days), collecting a variety of data, before it suddenly shut down. About 10 months before its arrival on Mars, the lander spent several days in a clean room at the Kennedy Space Center's hazardous cargo facility in Florida before it was launched from the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Station (then known as Cape Canaveral Air Force Station) on August 4, 2007, according to Live Science sister site Space.com.
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