Extreme Life

This ancient filament is versatile and can adapt to fill many critical roles.

Most life in the extreme Atacama Desert in Chile exists as microbial colonies underground or inside rocks. Researchers at NASA hypothesize that the same may be true if life exists on Mars.

By sequencing genomes of a newly discovered group of microbes, researchers have found out how these microorganisms make a living in the deep subsurface biosphere of our planet.

Scientists have collected rock samples from the shallow mantle of the ocean crust that bear signs of life.

European scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet.

The realm of extremophiles has exploded in roughly the period that exoplanet discoveries have exploded, and both serve to significantly change our view of what’s possible in nature writ large.

The ways ocean currents distribute life could apply to icy moons.

In spring 2015, researchers discovered a large, previously unknown field of hydrothermal vents in the Gulf of California, the deepest ever observed in or around the Pacific Ocean.

Cyanobacteria offer clues on how microbial life of some sort might fare on Mars.

Microbes can survive the harshness of space — but how?