Scientists are studying new technologies to make space probes "cleaner" to avoid contaminating Mars with microbes from Earth.

A team of scientists are developing a method to measure adhesion forces in spore, particles and spacecraft material surfaces, Ying Lin from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said at a scientific session of the 36th Assembly of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in Beijing.

"The results of this investigation will improve our understanding of spacecraft material cleanability at a fundamental level," said Dr. Lin, principal investigator for the project.

In 1968, COSPAR first published a set of guidelines to prevent life moving from one planet to another and causing harm during scientific investigation.

Mars is known as the "Red Planet" due to its reddish nighttime appearance when seen from Earth. The distance between Earth and Mars varies depending on their relative positions when orbiting around the Sun. At its closest, Mars is nearly 55.76 million kilometers away from the Earth.

The space race to Mars started in 1960 when the Soviet Union launched the first of a series of planetary probes. Even though two-thirds of past probes ended in failure, the drive to explore the red planet never stopped.

NASA plans to send two more spacecraft to Mars in the next five years: the Phoenix stationary lander in 2007 and the Mars Science Laboratory rover in 2009.

Dr. Lin's team has completed an indoor and outdoor air sampling study and drawn up statistics relating spore-forming bacteria to air particle size.

They have also developed a methodology to attach a single spore to an atomic force microscope cantilever. Atomic microscopes are a leading tool for imaging, measuring and manipulating matter at the nanoscale.

"The data will help in planetary cleaning, material selection, assessing contamination risks and developing optimal spacecraft cleaning strategies," Dr. Lin said.

Scientists have found that some microbes could survive in extreme environments and potentially grow.

Source: Xinhua