IDEAL MICROHABITATS ON MARS: THE ASTROBIOLOGICAL POTENTIAL OF POLAR DUNES

We briefly summarize the work and results obtained by the Mars Astrobiology Group at Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study during the last 10 years on the Dark Dune Spot–Mars Surface Organism (DDS-MSO) hypothesis. The spots have been discovered by [1]. Proposed explanation for their changes was given by [2]. During our research we fused remote observations (MEX, MGS, MRO) of Mars, collected and analyzed samples of cryptobiotic crust (CBC) from hot and cold deserts on Earth, estimated environmental parameters and used results from Mars chamber tests [3] as well as analysis of microbial communities in the ice of Antarctic desert carried out by other researchers [4,5]. We also used our results and methods to gain insight into the estimation of the astrobiological potential not only for dunes but other surface features on Mars as well. 6. at the end of spring the surface gets dry and the MSOs go into dormant state [11]; 7. annual recurrence of DDS and seepage roughly at the same location [20].