Draft:Humanity's cosmic footprint

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Humanity's cosmic footprint refers to the cumulative, past, present, and potential future impact of human activity beyond Earth, including material, biological, electromagnetic, and cultural traces that persist in space environments.

Origin

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The idea developed gradually across legal, scientific, and ethical contexts.

Its earliest foundation appears in the duty to prevent “harmful contamination or interference” expressed in Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty (1967).[1] Subsequent institutions and researchers expanded this concern in different ways:

• Since 1964, the COSPAR has maintained planetary protection and bioburden assessment policies, defining a biological dimension of human impact.[2]
• In 1974, the UNOOSA created the Registration Convention, requiring the registration of all launched space objects.
• In 2020, the essay *“Not My Space Administration”* noted that “from the smallest fleck of satellite paint to machinery on the Moon, humankind has already left a clear cosmic footprint.”[3]
• In 2021, researchers in SETI and technosignature studies used the phrase to describe how detectable a civilization’s activity is across space.[4]

The expression became a defined interdisciplinary topic at the 2024 ISSI Forum on Humanity’s Cosmic Footprint and Large-Scale Space Ethics, which proposed treating these traces as a single field of study.[5] It was later formalized in the 2025 Nature Astronomy correspondence *“A call to address humanity’s cosmic footprint”*, which proposed an integrated view of all human traces beyond Earth.[6] The publication received broad press coverage, establishing the term as a recognized cross-disciplinary framework.[7][8][9]

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The concept offers a way to group the many kinds of human impact in space and to link existing topics that describe them separately. It provides encyclopedic value by connecting articles on physical artefacts, biological transfer, electromagnetic emissions, and cultural archives under a single interpretive heading.

Material and physical footprint – artefacts, missions, and energy systems
• Space debris and cascading collisions (Kessler syndrome).
• Surface artefacts and impactors – List of artificial objects on the Moon, List of artificial objects on Mars, deliberate impactors such as DART (spacecraft) and LCROSS.
• Deep-space probes – Interstellar Probe (spacecraft), List of artificial objects leaving the Solar System, List of Solar System probes.
• Energy and nuclear systems – Radioisotope thermoelectric generator missions; List of nuclear power systems in space.
• Celestial-dynamics effects – asteroid deflection and ejecta propagation.[10]
Biological footprint – microbial transfer and contamination
• Planetary protection frameworks under COSPAR.
• Ethical and theoretical discussions include *Planetary Protection — A Microbial Ethics Approach*[11] and *To Seed or Not to Seed*, which analyses the moral status of deliberate panspermia.[12]
Electromagnetic and technosignature footprint – emissions and detectability
• Quantification of civilizational visibility is expressed through the ichnoscale framework.[13]
• Radio leakage from communications and radar.[14]
• Directed signals – List of interstellar radio messages, studied in SETI and Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
• Narrow-beam transmissions such as those from the Deep Space Network.[15]
Cultural and archival footprint – symbolic and memorial aspects
• Knowledge archives – Arch Mission Foundation and related lunar and solar libraries.
• Cultural artefacts – Tesla Roadster (spacecraft), List of time capsules, Space burial, and heritage items on the Moon.
Governance and stewardship – ethics and coordination
• Global policy and environmental governance.[16]
• Space environmentalism and sustainability.[17]
• Inclusion and governance – “Indigenous people and others need a say in space governance.”[18]
• Research on terraforming and planetary stewardship.[19]

References

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  1. ^ "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space". United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Retrieved 13 October 2025.
  2. ^ Ehrenfreund, P. (2024). "Editorial to the New Restructured and Edited COSPAR Policy on Planetary Protection". Space Research Today: 10–13.
  3. ^ "Not My Space Administration". Viterbi Conversations in Ethics (University of Southern California). Spring 2020.
  4. ^ Socas-Navarro, H.; Haqq-Misra, J. (2021). "Classifying technosignatures according to their cosmic footprint". Acta Astronautica. 182: 376–386. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.02.004.
  5. ^ Humanity's Cosmic Footprint and Large-Scale Space Ethics – Final Report (PDF) (Report). International Space Science Institute. 8–10 January 2024.
  6. ^ Normier, Adrien; Boujibar, Asmaa (2025). "A call to address humanity's cosmic footprint". Nature Astronomy. 9 (7): 934–935. Bibcode:2025NatAs...9..934N. doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02606-7.
  7. ^ "Maailman huippujulkaisu: Ihmiskunnan kosminen jalanjälki kaipaa hallintaa". Uusi Suomi (in Finnish). 20 August 2025.
  8. ^ "Turkulaistutkijat mukana kansainvälisessä vetoomuksessa – Ihmiskunnan kosminen jalanjälki kasvaa hallitsemattomasti". Turun Sanomat (in Finnish). 20 August 2025.
  9. ^ "Ihmiskunnan kosminen jalanjälki". Aamuset (in Finnish). 20 August 2025.
  10. ^ Fenucci, M.; Carbognani, A. (2024). "Long-term orbital evolution of Dimorphos boulders and implications on the origin of meteorites". Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 528 (4): 6660–6665. doi:10.1093/mnras/stae464.
  11. ^ Cockell, C. S. (2005). "Planetary Protection — A Microbial Ethics Approach". Space Policy. 21: 287–292. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2005.08.004.
  12. ^ Soryl, A.; Sandberg, A. (2025). "To Seed or Not to Seed: The Ethics of Directed Panspermia". Acta Astronautica. 232: 397–404. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.01.021.
  13. ^ Socas-Navarro, H.; Haqq-Misra, J. (2021). "Classifying technosignatures according to their cosmic footprint". Acta Astronautica. 182: 376–386. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.02.004.
  14. ^ Saide, R. C.; Garrett, M. A.; Heeralall-Issur, N. (2023). "Simulation of the Earth's radio leakage from mobile towers as seen from selected nearby stellar systems". Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 522: 2393–2402. doi:10.1093/mnras/stad1125.
  15. ^ "Footprint of the Deep Space Network on the Radio Sky". Astrophys. J. Lett. 960 (1): L1 – L5. 2025. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ad8d30 (inactive 13 October 2025).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2025 (link)
  16. ^ Crawford, I. A. (2021). "The Need for Global Coordination in Space Exploration and Protection". In Chon-Torres, O.; Peters, T. (eds.). Astrobiology Ethics. Scrivener. pp. 313–338.
  17. ^ Lawrence, A.; Rawls, M. L.; Jah, M. (2022). "The Case for Space Environmentalism". Nature Astronomy. 6: 428–435. doi:10.1038/s41550-022-01655-0 (inactive 13 October 2025).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2025 (link)
  18. ^ "Indigenous people and others need a say in space governance". Nature Astronomy. 9: 1023–1024. 2025. doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02680-w (inactive 13 October 2025).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2025 (link)
  19. ^ "The Case for Mars Terraforming Research". Nature Astronomy. 9: 1030–1032. 2025. doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02670-x (inactive 13 October 2025).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2025 (link)