BBC Focus Magazine

[Geekit]

Does bacteria piggy back on orbiters, probes and rovers? If so could these bacteria and such evolve on other celestial body's? Tricking us into thinking that we found life on future space missions

[M Paul Lloyd]

Ah well now, back in the day (my day sadly) space probes were 'cooked' to avoid contaminating alien environements, such as the Mars Viking landers whereas the Rovers (Spirit and Oppertunity) were not and so bugs of all kinds could have found their way to the red planet............... but................ our understanding of the extraterrestrial environment has improved over the last forty odd years and we now know that such life forms will not last very long (let alone breed or evolve) in the hostile environment of space. Consider that the latest Mars rover Curiosity is not solar powered but plutonium/nuclear.
Stitch that greenpeace.

[Shadowwolf]

We'll we haven't really sent them anywhere where they could make a start and such things take a really long time. Besides, it's not as though extremophiles would be floating around the probe fabrication facilities so as Mr M says, anything that might manage to hitch a ride probably won't last long.

[Geekit]

So in the case of the voyager probes that are now escaping our solar system would the internals not be shielded from the radiation and what not? Or is it to do with a food source? Another Q do bacteria need food

[M Paul Lloyd]

The Voyager probes are, like Viking, all old school technology (1970's) and as far as I am aware were subjected to the same cooking sterilsation process as all other such probes of that period. However even if they hadn't the space environment would have achieved much the same result long before now. The radiation from the Jupiter flyby alone would have been more than sufficient.