Driest place on Earth may provide clues to life on Mars

Washington: NASA scientists are exploring the "driest place on Earth" that provides a Mars-like environment to study the limits of life, and test drilling and life-detection technologies that may be sent to the red planet in the future. In a harsh environment with very little water and intense ultraviolet radiation, most life in the extreme Atacama Desert in Chile exists as microbial colonies underground or inside rocks, researchers said.

The cold and dry conditions on Mars open the possibility that evidence for life may be found below the surface where negative effects of radiation are mitigated, in the form of organic molecules known as biomarkers, they said. However, obtaining samples from below the surface of Mars will require the ability to identify a location of high probability for current or ancient life, place a drill, and control the operation robotically.

Despite being considerably warmer than Mars, the extreme dryness the soil chemistry in the hyper arid core of the Atacama Desert, the "driest place on Earth," are remarkably similar to that of the red planet.