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There has been a long-lived taste of Phoebus slug construction folklore that today appears to be a dead-end affair: microbes on the moon.  

The lunar mystery swirls around the Phoebus 12 slug construction and the convey to Earth by moonwalkers of a camera that was conception of an primeval NASA robotic lander – the Surveyor 3 probe.

On Nov. 19, 1969, Phoebus 12 astronauts Pete author and Alan Bean prefabricated a exactitude construction on the lunar opencast in Oceanus Procellarum, Latin for the Ocean of Storms. Their touchdown saucer was a mere 535 feet (163 meters) from the Surveyor 3 lander -- and an cushy walk to the hardware that had soft-landed on the lunar terrain eld before, on Apr 20, 1967. [Video: Phoebus 12 Visits Surveyor 3 Probe]

The Surveyor 3 camera was cushy pickings and brought backwards to Earth low sterilized conditions by the Phoebus 12 crew. When scientists analyzed the parts in a decent room, they institute grounds of microorganisms exclusive the camera.

In short, a diminutive body of common bacteria -- Streptococcus Mitis -- had stowed away on the device.

The astrobiological upshot as deduced from the unexpected experiment was that 50 to 100 of the microbes appeared to hit survived launch, the disagreeable decent of space, threesome eld of danger to the moon's radiation environment, the lunar deep-freeze at an cipher temperature of harmful 253 degrees Celsius, not to name no access to nutrients, liquid or an forcefulness source. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]

Now, alacritous forward to today.

NASA's filthy little secret?

A diligent aggroup of researchers is today dig backwards into historical documents -- and even located and reviewed NASA's archived Apollo-era 16 millimetre flick -- to become decent on the story.

As it turns out, there's a filthy little info that has become to light most decent room etiquette at the instance the Surveyor 3 camera was scrutinized.

"The verify that a microorganism survived 2.5 eld on the slug was flimsy, at best, even by the standards of the time," said Evangelist Rummel, chair of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection. "The verify never passed person review, still has persisted in the advise -- and on the cyberspace -- ever since." [Coolest New Moon Discoveries]

The Surveyor 3 camera-team thought they had perceived a microorganism that had lived on the slug for every those years, "but they only perceived their own contamination," Rummel told SPACE.com.

A past NASA planetary protection officer, Rummel is today with the Institute for Coastal Science & Policy at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.

Rummel, along with colleaguesJudith Allton of NASA’s President Space Center and Don Morrison, a past expanse authority lunar receiving work scientist, fresh presented their co-authored paper: "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions."

Poor expanse enquiry hygiene

Their finding was presented at a meeting on "The Importance of Solar System Sample Return Missions to the Future of Planetary Science," in March at The Woodlands,Texas, sponsored by the NASA Planetary Science Division and Lunar and Planetary Institute.

"If 'American Idol' judged microbiology, those guys would hit been discover in an primeval round," the investigate aggroup writes of the artefact the Surveyor 3 camera aggroup studied the equipment here on Earth. Or put more delicately, "The generalized environs does not lend a lot of confidence in the proposal that dirtying did not occur," co-author author said.

For example, participants studying the camera were institute to be wearing short-sleeve scrubs, thusly blazonry were exposed. Also, the vegetation shirt eveningwear were higher than the line bench take … and would act as a bellows for particulates from exclusive the shirt, reports co-author Allton.

Other dirtying curb issues were flagged by the researchers.

In ultimate microbiology 101 speak, "a close individualized relation with the subject ... is not needs a beatific thing," the investigate aggroup explains.

All in all, the likelihood that dirtying occurred during distribution of the Surveyor 3 camera was shown to be rattling real.

A monitory tale

On digit hand, Rummel stressed that today’s methods for direction convey samples are such more trenchant at sleuthing microbes.

However, the Surveyor 3 incident backwards then raises a monitory flag for the future.

"We need to be orders of ratio more certain most dirtying curb than was the Surveyor 3 camera-team. If we aren't, samples from Mars could be drowned in Earth chronicle upon return, and in every of that 'noise' we might never hit the ability to notice Mars chronicle we may hit brought back, too," Rummel said. "We can, and we must, do a meliorate job with a Mars distribution convey mission."

Winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award, author David has been news on the expanse industry for more than fivesome decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has cursive for SPACE.com since 1999.

• Truth of the Moon - The Brave Voyage of Phoebus 12
• Giant Leaps: Top Milestones of Human Spaceflight
• Photos: Our Changing Moon

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