There is a small but important chance that Mars hosted microbial life sometime, or even today. For that reason, there are certain areas of the Red Planet that may be off-limits to future explorers, robotics or humans. These are the Special Regions.
Since we thought it was cold and lifeless, Mars now looks like it could have been habitable one day. If we want to discover this in the future, we need to ensure that we do not contaminate it with terrestrial microbes. Fortunately, the Martian environment is deadly for terrestrial life, but there may be some regions in which microbes that may have come on a ship lead to a false detection of life on Mars.
Thus, scientists came up with the idea of Special Regions. As defined by the Space Research Committee (COSPAR) in its 2008 Planetary Protection Policy, there are regions “in which terrestrial organisms are likely to spread or a region that is interpreted to have a high potential for the existence of life forms Martian.”
Updated 2016 map of possible Special Regions on Mars.
In 2016, this definition was updated to be more specific. A Special Region is now one that has a water activity rating of 0.5 to 1. Water activity is a measure of how suitable it is for life, depending on how easily life can use it for food.
The other main feature of a Special Region is that it has a temperature hot enough to support terrestrial organisms. This is defined as -25 ° C and above. There was also a recommendation to include methane in the definition, which can support biological life, but that has not yet been included.
But despite all that, we still haven't found a single Special Region on Mars. "There are no Special Regions identified on Mars today," said John Rummel of East Carolina University. "We defined them, but we didn't find them," he concluded.
Well, we still haven't found these regions today, it doesn't mean that in the future we won't find them, so it is excellent to have a regulation with this precaution.
If these places exist, we will have to be extremely careful. We are doing a decent job of studying the surface, and so far Mars appears to be a promising place, despite appearing to be a desert planet. There, somewhere, there may be a small pocket of habitability. [ IFLS ]