''Tersicoccus phoenicis'' is a member of the bacterial family Micrococcaceae. It has only been found in two spacecraft assembly clean room facilities and is resistant to the methods normally used to clean such facilities. The species name is derived from ''tersi'', Latin for clean; ''coccus'', Greek for berry; and ''phoenicis'', from NASA's ''Phoenix'' lander, the spacecraft being prepared when these bacteria were first discovered.

Occurrence

''Tersicoccus phoenicis'' are only known to exist at two locations on Earth, and were independently found in geographically separated clean room facilities nearly apart. One example was located during a 2007 microbial test swabbing of the ''Phoenix'' lander clean room floor in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center ( Florida, United States), while the other was found in the

Herschel Space Observatory The Herschel Space Observatory was a space observatory built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was active from 2009 to 2013, and was the largest infrared telescope ever launched until the launch of the James Webb Space Telesc ...

's clean room at Guiana Space Centre ( Kourou, French Guiana). Parag Vaishampayan, a microbiologist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, suggests that this species may exist naturally outside of the clean room environment but has not been seen before due to the difficulty in isolating a single microbe type among the wide variety of different types found in nature.

Characteristics

These bacteria are non-

spore In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, f ...

-forming, aerobic, non-motile, and Gram-positive. They are roughly spherical ( coccus) in shape and measure approximately in diameter. This species maintains a coccal morphology throughout their growth; the rod–coccus life cycle typically observed in nearly all ''

Arthrobacter ''Arthrobacter'' (from the Greek, "jointed small stick”) is a genus of bacteria that is commonly found in soil. All species in this genus are Gram-positive obligate aerobes that are rods during exponential growth and cocci in their stationary ...

'' species is not present. They are able to survive in environments with few nutrients. Two strains of ''T. phoenicis'' are known to exist, one at each discovery site: ''1P05MA^T'' at the American facility and ''KO_PS43'' at the French Guianan facility.

Significance

Because species like ''T. phoenicis'' are hardy enough to survive the sterilization measures used in spacecraft clean rooms, scientists study them and index their genetic material so that if a potential

extraterrestrial Extraterrestrial refers to any object or being beyond ( extra-) the planet Earth ( terrestrial). It is derived from the Latin words ''extra'' ("outside", "outwards") and ''terrestris'' ("earthly", "of or relating to the Earth"). It may be abbrevia ...

bacterium were returned to Earth aboard a spacecraft, it could be compared to the index and ruled out as something that may have been originally launched with the spacecraft. Additionally, by examining the characteristics of resistant microbes such as ''T. phoenicis'', scientists may be able to develop improved sterilization methods. This is necessary to prevent the contamination of other celestial bodies by organisms aboard visiting spacecraft, which may have already occurred with the ''Curiosity'' rover on Mars.

Recognition

On May 23, 2014, the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) declared the bacterium as one of its "Top 10 New Species of 2014", selected from species discovered in 2013, due to the unusual location of its discovery and resistance to sterilization.

References

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