The Committee on Planetary Protection (CoPP) monitors progress implementing the planetary protection guidelines associated with priority programs and missions identified in the National Academies ...

Protecting planets from extraterrestrial invasion might sound like a job that only exists in science fiction. But NASA recently posted a "Help Wanted" ad for exactly this position, under the name ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. More than 50 years after Neil Armstrong first walked on the Moon, space exploration has become almost commonplace. The record for ...

Tiny life forms tucked into debris from an asteroid hit could catapult to other planets—including Earth—and survive, a new ...

HOUSTON—The concept of planetary protection—the prevention of life forms on other planets from infecting Earth and preventing terrestrial life forms from contaminating other worlds—has a long history.

As humanity embarks on a new era of space exploration, of establishing permanent human bases on the moon and Mars, sustainability must become the bedrock of our exploration efforts beyond Earth. With ...