User:Robertinventor/Present day habitability of Mars dispute
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The issue concerns the present day habitability of the surface of Mars, subject of a major conference in February of this year.
BatteryIncluded added a statement to the Life on Mars page that the surface is not habitable because of cosmic radiation. This has eventually been expanded into the second paragraph here: Surface brines. He also used the same reasoning as a basis to delete a long section on the topic from Water on Mars.
Most of the recent papers on present day habitability of the Mars surface do not mention cosmic radiation. The one that does, has it as tenth in importance as a habitability limiting factor. UV is high on the list but cosmic radiation is low.
None of the participants in the conference raised cosmic radiation in the questions afterwards. Some of the speakers went so far as to be optimistic about detection of surface life on Mars.
My main contention is with his statement, which currently reads:
"Even at a depth of 2 meters beneath the surface, any microbes would likely be dormant, cryopreserved by the current freezing conditions, and so metabolically inactive and unable to repair cellular degradation as it occurs"
That is OR in my view. The OR part is where he says "any microbes would likely be dormant".
The proposal which the ongoing research is investigating is that microbes can live and reproduce in these habitats. If this turns out to be true, they would not be continuously dormant, but would revive at least occasionally and metabolize or reproduce.
It is of course okay to point out that it is a difficult habitat for life and many problems have been raised for life that might live there. However the consensus seems to be that these issues are just about surmountable for sufficiently hardy life forms (UV, perchlorates, etc all surmountable). If these habitats do exists, the emerging consensus seems to be that there is a chance that some (not all) of them are habitable.
Further more I propose creation of a new article on the habitability of the surface of Mars.
As the subject of a major conference, and dozens of papers every year, it is clearly notable, and there is probably too much material for the Life on Mars or Water on Mars pages. See Recommendation, new article on the Present-Day Habitability of Mars