A trial NASA rover mission in the Mars-like Atacama desert has successfully recovered subterranean organisms — strange, scattered, salt-resistant bacteria that could lead the search for Martian life deeper underground. (EurekaAlert!)

Read the full release from EurekaAlert! at:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/f-ctm022119.php

The paper, “Subsurface Microbial Habitats in an Extreme Desert Mars-Analog Environment,” was published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. The research was supported in part by the Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) element of the NASA Astrobiology Program. ASTEP was an active program element from 2001 to 2014 and supported investigations focused on exploring Earth’s extreme environments to learn how best to search for life on other planets. The types of projects that were funded by ASTEP are now competed under Planetary Science and Technology from Analog Research (PSTAR).