Dr. Dirk Schulze-Makuch believes his research into extremophiles in the Atacama could help NASA re-assess its search for alien life.
“All experiments should be re-evaluated, since we now have a much better understanding of Martian environments,” Dr. Dirk Schulze-Makuch told IE in an interview.No place on Earth has the exact conditions we see on Mars. Scientists believe the Red Planet once had rivers with flowing water. Today, though, the planet’s surface is an arid wasteland with an atmosphere 100 times thinner than ours.
In fact, Schulze-Makuch believes NASA may have already detected life on Mars with its Viking landers in the 1970s. As microbial life in the Atacama Desert dies when exposed to too much water, the space agency may have killed this life with its liquid water life detection experiments. In other words, in trying to find life on Mars, NASA may have obliterated it instead.
A selfie captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover earlier this year. The Perseverance rover is searching for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. Source:on the ancient Jezero lakebed, in 2021. Since that time, it has been collecting samples of Martian soil and leaving them for future missions to return to Earth. The space agency, and the global scientific community, hopes those samples will contain signs of ancient microbial life.
The Atacama Desert serves as an analog to Mars on Earth. In this picture, captured in 2019, a NASA scientist prepares a rover experiment to test technology that would one day be used on Mars. Source:, titled “We may be looking for Martian life in the wrong place,” Schulze-Makuch highlights his belief that NASA should re-focus its search on salt-rich regions of Mars.
An artist’s illustration of one of the Viking orbiters releasing its lander as it reaches Mars. This release occurred around the high point of Viking’s orbit. Source:According to Schulze-Makuch, these readings may have another explanation that could be explained by research into microbial life in the Atacama Desert.
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