Mars, despite its current existence as a barren red wasteland, is thought to have once been relatively Earth-like. In fact, a great deal of evidence demonstrates that extensive bodies of water existed billions of years ago on Mars’s surface, which means that Mars may have supported life before it lost its atmosphere and was being bombarded by radiation. Conversely, there are places on Earth so remote and forbidding that they are eerily Mars-like—and until we manage to successfully get samples back to Earth, these locations could be the closest thing we get to studying Mars up-close and personal.
With terrain almost as forbidding as the vast expanses of the Red Planet, Salar de Pajonales is one such location. These salt flats lie in Chile’s Atacama Desert—one of the driest places on Earth—at an elevation of about 11,540 feet (3,517 meters) above sea level. Recently, an international team of researchers trekked to this alien landscape, hoping to find out if traces of ancient life were frozen in time inside the gypsum crystals glittering throughout the site. The researchers sampled gypsum crusts and stromatolites (the mineral structures left behind by microbial mats) near the Flamencos Lagoon national reserve.\
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