Shock recovery experiments confirm the possibility of transferring viable microorganisms from Mars to Earth

Stöffler, D.; Meyer, C.; Fritz, J.; Horneck, G.; Möller, R.; Cockell, C. S.; de Vera, J. P. and Hornemann, U. (2005). Shock recovery experiments confirm the possibility of transferring viable microorganisms from Mars to Earth. In: 68th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, 12-16 Sep 2005, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA.

URL: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/metsoc2005/pdf/50...

Abstract

Extract from introduction: With regard to the impact and ejection phase we tested the case for the transfer of microorganisms from Mars to Earth. Using a high explosive set-up thin layers of bacterial endospores of Bacillus subtilis, of the lichen Xanthoria elegans and of the cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis sp. embedded between two plates of gabbro were subjected to 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 GPa which is the pressure range observed in Martian meteorites [1].

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