NASA is updating its guidelines on how to prevent contamination of the Solar System

After years of debate, NASA plans to update its guidelines for how much biological contamination of other worlds will be allowed while the agency explores the Solar System. The new rules would relax some of the agency’s requirements for how to explore the Moon and Mars — two high-profile destinations where NASA hopes to send astronauts in the coming years.

For decades, NASA has followed fairly strict rules about how much biological contamination is considered acceptable whenever the agency sends probes — or people — to other planets. It’s a concept known as planetary protection, and it has a legal basis in a treaty signed more than 50 years ago. Called the Outer Space Treaty, it challenges nations to explore other worlds “so as to avoid...

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