(Image credit: NASA)Īlso foreseeing a possible impact from increased traffic to the moon is Paul Lucey of the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Artemis flight pathįull moon shines on Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft. Over time, Graham said, ongoing exploration of the moon could continue to deliver water and carbon sources to these locations, which could one day result in growth. 'This is the 'survival' end of the scale with spores present.' 'Rather…we will almost certainly deposit hearty spores in protected micro-niches where the max temperature and radiation protection features at that site will allow them to persist,' Graham said. Graham pointed out that the way the study team is approaching this problem isn't necessarily because they think Artemis missions will cause a flood of microbes to bloom immediately near the lunar south pole in a 'dorm room fridge' scenario. 'We view humans as the most likely vector given the extensive data that we have about our history of exploration and the impact record as a second, albeit less influential, early terrestrial source,' Graham added. 'We will soon have 50 years of history of humans and their objects on the surface with no stringent requirements regarding forward contamination,' she said. Graham said that, more importantly, the study team is very aware of the many ways that humans are the biggest vector of microbes to the moon. 'It may be an interesting idea, but without viable data this route cannot be included in this study.' 'While extraterrestrial transfer of organic molecules from meteoritic sources is very likely, and indeed observed in our own terrestrial meteorite analysis, the transfer of microbes from similar sources does not have the same weight of evidence,' Graham said. But that doesn't mean that Earth microbes also survived that deep-space trip. That is indeed a possibility, said Heather Graham, an organic geochemist at NASA Goddard who's also a member of the study team. Small pieces of our planet might have been hurled to the moon as 'Earth meteorites' - rocks blasted into space by powerful cosmic impacts. Is it possible that samples of Earth's history could be lurking in sun-shy lunar craters? (Image credit: Meteoritics & Planetary Science/ Jenkins et al.)

Related: See Artemis 3 landing zone near moon's south pole in stunning new NASA photos Earth's history - on iceĪ close-up image of white salt crystals on the gray and rocky surface of a meteorite fragment. In work presented at a recent science workshop on the potential Artemis 3 landing sites, Saxena and study members reported that the lunar south pole may contain substantial surface niches that could be potentially habitable for a number of microorganisms.

'We're currently working on understanding which specific organisms may be most suited for surviving in such regions and what areas of the lunar polar regions, including places of interest relevant to exploration, may be most amenable to supporting life,' he said. Indeed, the lunar south pole may possess the properties that can enable survival and potentially even episodic growth of certain microbial life, Saxena said. 'One of the most striking things our team has found is that, given recent research on the ranges in which certain microbial life can survive, there may be potentially habitable niches for such life in relatively protected areas on some airless bodies,' Saxena told. Microbial life could potentially survive in the harsh conditions near the lunar south pole, suggested Prabal Saxena, a planetary researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. New research suggests that future visitors to the lunar south pole region should be on the lookout for evidence of life in super-cold permanently shadowed craters - organisms that could have made the trek from Earth. A landing site is a location within those regions with an approximate 328-foot (100 meters) radius. Each region is approximately 9.3 by 9.3 miles (15 by 15 kilometers).

Rendering of 13 candidate landing regions for NASA's Artemis 3 mission.

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