Editing Surveyor 3 (section)

==Apollo 12 and the possibility of interplanetary contamination==
[[File:Surveyor 3-Apollo 12.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Pete Conrad|Charles Conrad Jr.]], Apollo 12 Commander, stands next to Surveyor 3. In the background is the Apollo 12 Lunar Module, ''Intrepid''.  [[Alan L. Bean]], the Lunar Module pilot of [[Apollo 12]] captured the image.]]{{Main|Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the Moon}}
The Surveyor 3 landing site was later selected also as the landing target for the [[Lunar Module]] of the Apollo 12 crewed lunar mission in 1969. Several components of the Surveyor 3 lander were collected and returned to the Earth for study of the long-term exposure effects of the harsh lunar environment on human-made objects and materials. Although space probes have returned to Earth in the decades since Apollo 12, this remains the only occasion on which humans have visited a probe that had been sent off-world.<ref name="g936">{{cite web | author=Ezzy PearsonScience journalist | title=Apollo 12: the story of the second manned mission to the Moon | website=BBC Sky at Night Magazine | date=2019-11-01 | url=https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/apollo-12-story-second-mission-moon | access-date=2024-07-21}}</ref>

It is widely claimed that a common type of [[bacterium]], ''[[Streptococcus mitis]]'', [[Interplanetary contamination|accidentally contaminated]] the Surveyor's camera prior to launch, and that the bacteria survived dormant in the harsh lunar environment for two and a half years, supposedly then to be detected when Apollo 12 brought the Surveyor's camera back to the Earth.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/headlines/ast01sep98_1.htm |title=Earth microbes on the Moon |publisher=Science.nasa.gov |access-date=July 20, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100323224432/http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast01sep98_1.htm |archive-date=March 23, 2010 }}</ref> This claim has been cited by some as providing credence to the idea of interplanetary [[panspermia]], but more importantly, it led NASA to adopt strict abiotic procedures for space probes to prevent contamination of the planet [[Mars]] and other astronomical bodies that are suspected of having conditions possibly suitable for life. Most dramatically, the [[Galileo spacecraft|''Galileo'' space probe]] was deliberately destroyed at the end of its mission by crashing it into [[Jupiter]], to avoid the possibility of contaminating the Jovian moon [[Europa (moon)|Europa]] with bacteria from Earth. The [[Cassini–Huygens|''Cassini'']] probe also impacted [[Saturn]] at the end of its mission in 2017.

However, independent investigators have challenged the claim of surviving bacteria on Surveyor 3 on the Moon. There is a possibility the contamination was caused by using a non-airtight container,<ref name="David">{{cite news |last=David |first=Leonard |date=2 May 2011 |title=Moon Microbe Mystery Finally Solved |work=[[Space.com]] |url=http://www.space.com/11536-moon-microbe-mystery-solved-apollo-12.html |accessdate=2011-05-15}}</ref> or when the samples  were being taken in the clean room after Apollo 12.<ref name="David"/><ref>{{cite web |author1=John D. Rummel|author2=Judith H. Allton|author3=Don Morrison |date=2011 |title=A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions |url=http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/sssr2011/pdf/5023.pdf}}</ref>