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by fghh45sdfhr3 5049 days ago
Did we contaminate the moon? I think if we can can put people on Mars, we'll like that more than not contaminating Mars.
1 comments
pc86 5049 days ago
The atmosphere of Mars is over 95% CO2[1] which I imagine could support the propagation of bacteria. The Moon doesn't have much of an atmosphere at all (a trillionth of what the Earth has).[2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_the_Moon

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tarice 5049 days ago
A bit of cyanobacteria[1] could theoretically thrive on Mars. All it takes is CO2, sunlight, and water.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria

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ars 5049 days ago
They also need nitrogen and trace minerals.

The minerals they could get from soil, but without nitrogen they can't make proteins. The atmosphere of mars is 2.7% nitrogen, but I'm not convinced that that is enough for nitrogen fixation to work.

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