Few places on the planet look less like Earth than the Danakil Depression, a scorched, sunken stretch of northeastern Ethiopia where the ground bubbles with acid, glows in shades of yellow and green, and sits low enough to trap some of the hottest average temperatures ever recorded anywhere on the surface of the planet. Streaks of sulphur, iron oxide and copper salt paint the landscape in colours that look closer to a painted alien movie set than anything found in nature, while nearby volcanoes spit lava into glowing lakes and hydrothermal springs hiss out gases at temperatures well above the boiling point. This is not a coincidence of geology alone; the Danakil Depression sits at one of the most geologically active spots on Earth, a place where the planet's crust is actively tearing itself apart, and scientists have increasingly turned to it as one of the closest natural analogues we have for the surface of Mars.
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