Chile's arid desert is said to be the closest thing to Mars that we have on Earth and a new discovery in the hellish landscape could help scientists find life on the Red Planet. A team from Cornell University uncovered diverse microbes lurking in wet clay just 11 inches below the surface of the Atacama Desert, suggesting there could be biosignatures in similar clay deposits on the Martian planet. The Gale crater on Mars is littered with similar clay-rich rocks and may have been habitable to microorganisms similar to those found in subsurface soils in the Earth-based desert. The study reinforces the notion that early Mars could have had a similar subsurface, particularly during the first billion years of its history. At 11 inches deep, they identified a number of minerals, including quartz and albite, along with a layer of wet clay mineral-rich soil.

Source: Daily Mail November 05, 2020 22:00 UTC