Erratum: Living at the extremes: Extremophiles and the limits of life in a planetary context(Frontiers in Microbiology)

Abstract

In the original article, there was an error. In the first paragraph about the radiation on Mars, it says, “These survival times are, in fact, lower limits in light recent measurements...”. There should be an “of” between “light” and “recent.” A correction has been made to CAN LIFE ORIGINATE, EVOLVE, OR SURVIVE ON OTHER PLANETARY BODIES?, Paragraph Number 5: Solar and galactic cosmic rays (high-energy particles with energies from 10 MeV to >10 GeV) present challenges to life on the surface and near-surface of Mars and other planetary bodies. However, any subsurface aquifer deeper than a few meters would be protected from damaging radiation. Dartnell et al. (2007) calculated the galactic cosmic ray dosage rates and the corresponding survival times (which they defined as a million-fold decrease in cell number) of characteristic microbes at different depths in Mars's subsurface. At the surface, E. coli has a survival time of 1,200 years, while at 20-m depth, that survival time jumps to 1.5 × 108 years. Compared to E. coli, D. radiodurans has survival times an order of magnitude longer. These survival times are, in fact, lower limits in light of recent measurements by the Radiation Assessment Detector onboard the Mars Science Laboratory (Hassler et al., 2014), which found that the actual dose rate at Gale Crater (76 mGy year−1) is a factor of 2 lower than that modeled by Dartnell et al. (2007). The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.