The Martian atmosphere has a low concentration of oxygen (Krasnopolsky, 2011) that would allow magnetobacteria to thrive even without the need of
magnetotaxis. However, a remanent magnetic field has been detected (Acuna et al., 1999), indicating that a consistent magnetic field was present on Mars in its early history, thus allowing the
magnetotaxis to occur.
Motile bacteria which exhibit
magnetotaxis, such as strain MC-1, a marine coccus, are being developed as drug targeting vehicles [122].
When subject to a magnetic field higher than 4 Gauss, the directional motions of the MTB were mainly influenced by
magnetotaxis (i.e., aligned to magnetic field lines) as compared to chemotaxis (i.e., moving towards or away from a chemical source) and aerotaxis (i.e., moving towards or away from air or oxygen), thus fully remotely controllable using appropriate electronic hardware and software.