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NASA tests life-detecting tools for Mars in the Atacama Desert
NASA wanted to find out whether the Mars 2020 rover can truly drill for samples and look for signs of life at the same time. So, a team of scientists spent the whole February testing tools using a practice rover called the KREX-2 in one of the driest places on Earth: the Atacama Desert. It's the perfect location to trial instruments NASA plans to use on Mars, since it's as dry as the red planet and under constant assault from ultraviolet radiation. Microbes in the Atacama live underground or inside rocks -- if there's life on Mars, NASA expects to find it in similar locations.
MIT harvests fog to make water in one of the driest places on Earth
The climate is so arid in some corners of the globe that virtually any source of water is crucial to survival; even the fog rolling over the hills could make a big difference. MIT is well aware of this, and has been testing an advanced form of fog harvesting in Chile's Atacama Desert (one of the driest places on the planet) to see how the technology can help communities in very harsh regions. By taking inspiration from fog-collecting organisms like beetles and grass, researchers built large meshes that are 500 percent more efficient at turning fog into drinkable water than previous systems. In the Atacama experiment, they're good enough to produce half a gallon of water a day for every 10 square feet of mesh. That's not a lot, but it's sufficient for watering gardens of edible plants like aloe vera.
