Re:Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues ...
by jandrese on Monday September 28, 2020 @05:33PM
(#24621449)
Something like a bacterial infection might pose a problem as it is just eating simple sugars and multiplying, but is completely novel to our immune system. A prion seems unlikely.
A virus wound be absolutely shocking.
One school of thought is that extraterrestrial pathogens could pose limited risk. Earthbound pathogens have co-evolved with humanity in order to harm us better, but xenobiological pathogens would not have this advantage and might not pose much of a threat.
On the other hand, it's entirely possible that the random chances of evolution could create a xenovirus that's airborne in humans and bootstraps a fatal prion disease in everyone it infects.