text: * The light-protective carotenoid pigments (present in photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae, cyanobacteria and in some bacteria and archaea) have been classified as high priority targets for biosignature models on Mars due to their stability and easy identification by Raman spectroscopy. In this experiment, the light-protective carotenoids in two organisms (cyanobacterium Nostoc sp. and the green alga cf. Sphaerocystis sp.) were still detectable at relatively high levels after being exposed for 15 months.
  * Dried biofilms of three desert strains of Chroococcidiopsis showed overall higher viability and lower amounts of DNA damage when compared to multi-layer films of the planktonic counterpart, and were consistent with ground Mars simulation experiments. The strains tested were CCMEE 029 from the Negev Desert, where they live beneath the surface of rocks (endoliths) and strains CCMEE 057 and CCMEE 064 from the Sinai Desert where they are both endoliths and hypoliths (within rocks or on the ground sheltered beneath rocks).
  * Other results are expected to be published in Frontiers in Microbiology under the research topic title: "Habitability Beyond Earth", and in an upcoming special collection of Astrobiology journal.
  * In March 2019, scientists reported that life-forms from Earth survived 18 months living in outer space outside the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the BIOMEX studies related to the EXPOSE-R2 mission, suggesting that life could survive, theoretically, on the planet Mars.