Question of the day: can bacteria from outer space kill humanity?

Gennady Charodeev

These words of the scientist excited colleagues-astrophysicists all over the world, and many of them have already matured their own attitude to the problem of mortal risk to humanity.

Is there such a problem at all? Ozge Kahraman Ilykkan, Ph.D. from Turkey, in a conversation with the journalists of the Milliyet newspaper, noted with regret that no organisms have yet been found in space.

"If there is a species there that we have not yet discovered on our planet and, therefore, the existence of which we do not know, a separate question is how much it, having come to us, will be able to adapt to life on Earth," the scientist argues ...

In addition, when returning to Earth, spacecraft are exposed to high temperatures, so it will be difficult for organisms of the forms we know to withstand these fire tests, the expert emphasized.

Explaining that in such a scenario, the probability of the destruction of humanity is very small, Dr. Ilykkan emphasized:

“This requires many factors. For example, the ability of a microorganism to cause disease in humans is associated with its adaptation to life in the human body. If we imagine that a certain microbial species, which can live on some other planet, has adapted to life there, then it will take a long time for it to destroy humanity. "

At the same time, in the course of some experiments on the International Space Station, a bacterium called salmonella enterica, which causes disease in humans, after exposure to cosmic radiation and a non-gravitational environment (in the conditions of the ISS), increased its pathogenic abilities, said Dr. Ilykkan. “This makes us think that in such environments, mutation and adaptation of microorganisms can occur faster. Of course, additional experiments and observations are needed to confirm this idea , ”she said.

For organisms that are uncontrollably transported from Earth into space to harm possible life there, they must adapt to local living conditions. But even so, it will take a very long time to change or damage that ecosystem, the researcher added.

Astrophysicist Dr. Umut Yildiz, explaining the biological risks associated with new space exploration aimed at areas with the highest probability of the presence of life, also believes that no traces of life have yet been found anywhere other than Earth, so it is impossible to talk about external biological risk ...

Sent to Mars in February this year, the Perseverence spacecraft is looking for traces of past or present life on the Red Planet, Dr. Yildiz recalled.

“There is still no news about the presence of specific traces. Since we do not yet know what a possible biological risk from another planet might look like, at the moment the preparation of a plan to protect against it will be carried out in the same way as we perceive life on Earth , ”the researcher said in an interview with the Milliyet newspaper.