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Excerpt from scitechdaily.com
A study has uncovered microbial life deep under Chile’s Atacama Desert, indicating that similar subsurface environments on Mars could also harbor life, supported by materials like gypsum. Yungay Playa with typical dry cracks. Credit: Lucas Horstmann, GFZ-Potsdam
In a finding with implications for the search for extraterrestrial life, scientists have uncovered microbial life 13 feet beneath the surface of the Atacama Desert, Earth’s most inhospitable desert. The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the driest hot desert in the world. Higher life forms are almost entirely absent, but the hyper-arid soil, rich in salts and sulfates, does harbor bacteria.
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