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To Ignore Strange New Worlds: Astrobiologists Fret About ‘Colonizing’ the Universe

I am old enough to remember the Apollo Project. One of the things I recall, besides Saturday morning cartoons being interrupted by shots of the astronauts, was the return of Apollo 11. The astronauts were placed in quarantine because no one was entirely sure that they had not picked up any strange things while being exposed to the moon dust on their suits and tools. In retrospect, it may have been the first time we publicly acknowledged the potential risks of even minuscule life in outer space.

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