All life as we know it needs water. But what organisms can survive when water is all but unavailable? To find out, one scientist is looking at soil from two of the driest places on Earth.

Jocelyne DiRuggiero, an associate professor of biology at Johns Hopkins University, is studying the similarities and differences between the microbial communities that live in the Atacama desert and the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. The samples she is analyzing were collected by NASA teams, including the recent IceBite project funded by the Astrobiology Science & Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) program. Studying microorganisms in these extreme desert locations could help astrobiologists understand the potential for past or present life on planets like Mars.