More than 50 years after Neil Armstrong first walked on the Moon, space exploration has become almost commonplace. The record ...

As humanity ventures deeper into space, one critical question looms large: how do we prevent Earth's microbes from contaminating other worlds? A new study published in Journal of The Royal Society ...

In the clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists wear suits and masks while working on the Mars 2020 rover to avoid contamination. Credit: NASA/JPL ...

It's every astronomer's worst nightmare: a future crewed mission to Mars or even beyond goes terribly awry when astronauts contaminate another planet with destructive microbes from Earth, devastating ...

Mars Sample Return campaign makes use of an armada of hardware to collect Martian soil, rock, and atmospheric specimens for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Now underway is a ...

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and world. Our ...

A rare microorganism found in an unexpected environment may be evading detection by "playing dead," according to ...

NASA wants you to be its real-life guardian of the planet. The space agency is looking for a planetary protection officer, someone to guard the planet from "organic-constituent and biological ...