Could disease come from outer space?

Question

A meteor just crashed in Peru, making the village sick. What if we find microscopic life on Mars, bring it back to Earth, and it is devastating to human life? What are the odds of this?

Answer 1

Organisms are usually adapted to their environment from where they came from. An organism that was adapted to live on Mars probably would find that the human body was too hot, or too acidic, or too alkaline, or whatever.

An organism that needed humans to survive would not live long on Mars because there are no humans there to act as a host, so it would probably die out.

It would be a big coincidence if a bacteria was living out in space that could also adapt easily to the environment inside the human body. You have been watching the "Andromeda Strain" too much.

Answer 2

The illness in Peru is more likely from gases in the Earth released by the meteor strike. Meteors fall to Earth all the time, and there's absolutely no previous evidence of anybody getting sick from them.

Answer 3

The likelihood of an "Andromeda Strain" scenario is negligibly small. On Earth, bacteria and viruses cause disease because they have evolved in parallel with us. Thus they are built of exactly the same organic building blocks, are designed by nature to activate various sites on host cells, etc. An organism from space would not have evolved in parallel with us, and thus would be unlikely to be adapted to make use of our bodies efficiently, if at all.

Answer 4

If they really got sick from it there must have been some sort of gas emitted by it.
There would be no organic material,like germs or anything that could have ridden the thing to earth.
The astronauts decontaminated themselves so as not to contaminate the moon.

Answer 5

even if there was microscopic life on the meteorite , i doubt it could have survived the impact when it comes crashing down on earth . odd= 1:10 . ther is still a chance , i guess .

Answer 6

http://forgetomori.com/2007/science/meteorite-makes-30-meter-crater-in-peru/

Here's a picture but heed the web site's name

I suppose there could be "bad germs" from outer space, but also could be micro-organisms stirred out of earth's soil or even a relaease of methane gas or something. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I am not going to worry about it very much.

Answer 7

well nobody can tell what kind of bactarea or virus may be present in mars or out there in the universe.

Answer 8

This has always been a consideration and NASA always worked at decontamination procedures. I assume they still will.

Answer 9

I read that is morning kind of scarey isn't it .