NASA has a job opening for a planetary protection officer, someone who prevents alien life from contaminating Earth. It may not be as exciting as Men in Black or Independence Day, but NASA still offers a six figure salary.
Planetary protection officers are responsible for defending other planets aside from Earth, Business Insider reports. The job description describes decontaminating astronauts, robots, and spacecraft before they depart for missions to another planet or solar system.
Defending the planet from extraterrestrials is, unsurprisingly, a rare job. There’s only two in the world. One works for NASA and the other is hired by the European Space Agency (ESA).
NASA’s offering a salary of $124,406 to $187,000 per year plus benefits for its new protection officer, hired on a three-to-five year contract. According to Business Insider, the job was created after the U.S. signed the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which details conservationist steps required when exploring new worlds. The treaty’s signatories agreed they must have a 1-in-10,000 chance of interplanetary contamination.
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