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In the Atacama Desert in Chile, Llullaillaco Volcano is the planet Mars on Earth – or almost as close as you can get it. At 22,000 feet above sea level, it is the second highest active volcano in the world. Most of the mountain is a sterile, red landscape of volcanic rock and dust, with dry, fine air, intense sunshine and winds that will blow up your tent.
While the soil can heat up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the air temperature rarely exceeds the freezing point. When the snow falls, it turns into gas just as it hits the ground. From time to time, snow can accumulate on the wind blown shorelines, which then turn into icy arrows up to 16 feet high. The Spaniards called these "penitent nieves," penitents, because they looked like hooded monks doing penance.
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These very high conditions on the volcano gave him the impression of being as lifeless as Mars. But a team of researchers led by Steven K. Schmidt, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado, is studying extreme living conditions, discovered microbes living in and around penitents at 17,300 feet of water. 39, altitude, about one thousand feet vegetation stops on the Llullaillaco Volcano.
Dr. Schmidt thought the volcano might be a great place to study the limits of life on Earth after hearing about three children were unearthed in 1999. The 500-year-old mummies were perfectly preserved without embalming agents.
The buried mummies were "huge bags of germs", full of water. The fact that they were not rotting suggested that the volcano's ground conditions were constantly too cold and dry for life to work.
But what about closer to the surface, where environmental conditions vary?
Dr. Schmidt knew that microbes had been found in the soil surface, the tephra or volcanic volcano of the same volcano, as well as in a nearby soil at a slightly lower altitude. But little was known about summits or penitents.
In discovering what conditions were living areas of life among the barren heights of this mountain, he could perhaps really understand the limits of life.
In March 2016, the team hoped to collect soil samples from the Llullaillaco summit. But after a week of travel between the coast and the desert, the bad weather pushed them to explore the penitents of the volcano. It was not the most extreme environment of the volcano, but it was still very hard and much higher than where life seemed to persist.
When someone from the expedition accidentally noticed the red snow at the base of some penitents, they wondered if that could be the case. watermelon snow, an algae found in other icy environments.
Scientists believe that penitents are the result of an unusual mix of conditions, such as wind, temperature fluctuations, and the sun's ultraviolet rays. As tiny footprints in the snow bags melt, the penitents grow up. It also releases the vital elixir of life – liquid water.
Microscopic and genetic analyzes confirmed that the red plaques at the bottom of the penitents were snow algae. And scientists have also discovered even more complex cyanobacteria, yeasts and microbes in ice and shallow tephra downstream of the penitents' melt.
"We view penitents as an oasis in this rugged landscape," said Dr. Schmidt, offering water and protection from the elements to the wind-blown microbes that were probably dormant before the weather began. water did not resuscitate them.
And because penitents are also found in the Himalayas, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush, as well as in the cities of Pluto and Europe, a closer look could help to discover animated oases on other worlds.
"I am excited about this discovery for its astrobiological implications," Lynn Rothschild, an astrobiologist from Brown University who did not participate in the study, wrote in an email.
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