Unknown Bacteria Discovered in Two Spacecraft Clean Rooms

Unknown Bacteria Discovered in Two Spacecraft Clean Rooms "Scientists have discovered a microbe that – to their knowledge – can be found just two places on Earth. The first: a spacecraft clean room in Guiana. The second: a spacecraft clean room in Florida, some 2,500 miles away."

" Clean rooms – where space agencies like NASA and ESA prepare spacecraft prior to launch – are certainly among the most sterile places on Earth, and therefore seem a rather unlikely place to find new forms of life. And yet, it bears mentioning that this is not the first time scientists have found one to harbor a microbe. In fact, in 2007, despite scientists' best efforts to zap them into oblivion with intense heat, chemical cleaning, and UV radiation, samples collected from three different NASA cleanrooms turned up close to 100 different kinds of bacteria, about half of which were new to science. Point being: even in the cleanest of places, microbial life finds a way."