NASA has revealed more about its plans to bring a piece of Mars back to Earth.
The US space agency posted on Instagram to explain how the very first Mars monster should arrive on Earth in just over a decade.
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NASA wrote: “We’re bringing a piece of Mars back to Earth.
“Our Perseverance rover is currently rolling through the Jezero crater, picking up samples from the Red Planet along the way.
“We plan to collect the Perseverance samples later in the decade. (We’re also sending two Ingenuity-class helicopters along for possible backup if needed.)
The space agency further explained how the samples will be picked up by its Mars Ascent Vehicle.
This vehicle then transfers the precious cargo to the European Space Agencies Earth Return Orbiter.
NASA hopes the monsters will land back on Earth in 2033.
It sounds like a well thought out plan, but it does come with risks.
One of those risks is the potential problem of contaminating Earth with something unknown in the Mars sample.
If scientists find life or evidence of ancient life on Mars, they must make sure Earth is safe when a sample of it is returned to our planet.
NASA scientist Dr. Moogega Cooper previously explained to Talks at Google: “When you bring something back, you don’t want to take anything that could be harmful to humans.
“So we have to do the best work we can to make sure it’s done right.”
When it comes to protecting Earth from alien life, Cooper says, “We can only protect ourselves from life as we know it today.
“If we learn something different, we can adapt that approach.
“It’s similar to the Covid approach. You learn something new and you have to adapt it.”
She added: “You just roll the punches because you’re scientists and that’s the same for life on Mars.
“We only know life as we know it. So we use the worst we can think of on our planet as a model for life on Mars.”
However, there is also the possibility that the Mars samples will be pure rock and will not contain unknown microbes.
Fortunately, NASA has more than a decade to come up with a plan for when the monsters arrive.