26 New Bacterial Species In NASA Cleanrooms To Hold Clues To Space Survival

New Delhi: An international team of scientists from India, Saudi Arabia, and the US has identified 26 novel bacterial species growing inside cleanrooms associated with NASA space missions.

The study, published in the journal Microbiome, highlights the importance of rigorous contamination control to prevent unintentional microbial transfer during space missions.

Cleanrooms are highly specialised facilities engineered to maintain exceptionally low levels of dust and microorganisms. Spacecraft are assembled in cleanrooms.

These unknown and newly described species carry genetic traits associated with resilience to extreme environments such as those found in space, and may hold clues to space survival and biotech, said the team.

While the controlled environments have tightly regulated airflow, temperature, and humidity that inhibit microbial survival, some microorganisms -- extremophiles -- thrive in such environments.