page_title: Surveyor 3
section_title: Apollo 12 and the possibility of interplanetary contamination
hierarchical_section_title: Surveyor 3 / Apollo 12 and the possibility of interplanetary contamination
caption_attribution_description: English: Charles Conrad Jr., Apollo 12 Commander, examines the unmanned Surveyor III spacecraft during the second extravehicular activity (EVA-2). The Lunar Module (LM) "Intrepid" is in the right background. This picture was taken by astronaut Alan L. Bean, Lunar Module pilot. The "Intrepid" landed on the Moon's Ocean of Storms only 600 feet from Surveyor III. The television camera and several other components were taken from Surveyor III and brought back to earth for scientific analysis. Surveyor III soft-landed on the Moon on April 19, 1967.
context_page_description: Surveyor 3 was the third lander of the American unmanned Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon in 1967. It was the first mission to carry a surface-soil sampling-scoop.
  Surveyor 3 was visited by Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean in November, 1969, and remains the only probe visited by humans on another world. They brought back some parts of it to study, including its TV camera.
context_section_description: The Surveyor 3 landing site was later selected also as the landing target for the Lunar Module of the Apollo 12 manned 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.
  It is widely claimed that a common type of bacterium, Streptococcus mitis, 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. 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 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 with bacteria from Earth.
  The 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. (See Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the Moon.)
caption: 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.
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