A rich microbial "biosphere" lies buried 13 feet (4 meters) beneath the scorched surface of Chile's Atacama Desert, new research has found. The hidden world of bacteria is one of the deepest found in Atacama soils and could inform the search for life on Mars.
Microbial life has previously been recorded down to depths of 2.6 feet (80 centimeters) in the Atacama Desert, but the new biosphere, in the region's bone-dry Yungay Valley is "completely isolated from the surface," according to the researchers.
