Atmospheric Dispersal of Contamination Sourced from a Putative Human Habitat on Mars
Abstract
Humans will contaminate Mars. Whether anthropogenic contamination will reach sites of biological interest on Mars (e.g., so called "Special Regions"), or complicate efforts to detect Martian biomarkers, was a recent source of debate in Astrobiology. One side recommended that Planetary Protection restrictions are reduced so that current instrumentation can examine the Special Regions prior to human arrival. Another side warned against reducing Planetary Protection restrictions "without an informed understanding of the real costs and what is at risk."
Our exploratory research quantitatively simulates the atmospheric dispersion of biological contaminants sourced from a putative Mars human habitat using the NASA Ames Mars Global Climate Model. Contaminants are modeled as tracers, and transported by transport algorithms, which directly solve a mass conserving continuity equation. Various combinations of human habitat locations and contaminant sizes are considered given a predetermined flux of biological particles/year released into the Martian ambient environment, grounded in estimates from International Space Station leak rates. The results from these simulations enable the creation of novel contamination heat maps showing the aerial distribution of contaminants from putative human habitats. These results can constrain locations of future habitats that minimize the aerial extent subject to bio-contaminants, protect sites of astrobiological interest, as well as constrain landing site selection of life detection missions to reduce risk of false positives.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.P51C..08P
- Keywords:
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- 0343 Planetary atmospheres;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 6225 Mars;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTS;
- 5405 Atmospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS;
- 5445 Meteorology;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS