COSPAR’s planetary protection guidelines for safe and sustainable scientific investigations on the emergence and evolution of life in the Solar System
- Paper number
IAC-25,E3,4,5,x102280
- Author
Dr. Athena Coustenis, Observatoire de Paris, France
- Coauthor
Mr. Niklas Hedman, COSPAR, Austria
- Coauthor
Dr. Peter Doran, Louisiana State University, United States
- Year
2025
- Abstract
The search for life within our Solar System and beyond has been a key motivation for space exploration since its inception. These efforts have focused on specific celestial bodies located within the "habitable zone” [1]. Mars has long been a primary target for exploration, although knowledge gaps remain in optimizing its exploration both with robotic and with human future missions [2,3]. In the past years, the large moons of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn have also emerged as fascinating astrobiological candidates, offering promising conditions for habitability and the potential for life to emerge and persist [4,5]. Here, we review the properties of such bodies and discuss some of their long-term exploration with missions [6, 7, 8] and projects under conditions put in place by the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection (PPP) which focuses on the biological exchange that occurs during solar system exploration, including the chemical evolution and the origin and development of life forms [4,5,9]. The COSPAR PP Policy [9] examines the potential impacts of contamination from Earth-based organisms on the environments of planets other than Earth and natural satellites, and also considers the risk of contaminating Earth with materials returned from space that may carry extraterrestrial life (cosparhq.cnes.fr/scienti_c-structure/panels/panel-on-planetary-protection-ppp/). The COSPAR Policy is grounded in the latest scientific understanding and adheres to the principle that COSPAR’s planetary protection guidelines should facilitate, not hinder, Solar System exploration by being regularly reviewed and updated in line with new scientific discoveries and the evolving demands of space exploration. In this paper, we review our current knowledge of the possible habitats in the Solar System and their current and future safe and sustainable exploration [e;g. 2, 10] to secure access to unique and primordial information on the origin and evolution of life on our own planet.\\ References:\\ [1] Coustenis & Encrenaz (2013), in “Life Beyond Earth”, Cambridge Univ. Press. [2] Olsson-Francis et al. (2023), LSSR 36, 27. [3] Spry et al. (2024), Astrobiology 24, #3, 230. [4] Tobie et al. (2025), Phil. Trans. A, in press. [5] Coustenis et al. (2025), Acta Astron., in press. [6] Coustenis et al. (2021) The Bridge 51, 41. [7] Pappalardo et al. (1999), JGR 104, 24015. [8] Barnes et al. (2021), PSJ 2, 130. [9] COSPAR, 2024, SRT 220, 10-13. and 14-36 https://issuu.com/cosparspaceresearchtoday/docs/space_research_today_220. [10] Doran et al. (2025), Phil. Trans. A, in press.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
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