Recently in the Analog Studies Category

If life exists on Mars, it will have sought refuge underground. Trying to uncover one of the best-kept secrets in the Solar System, scientists are working a kilometre beneath the ground, with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer joining them this week.

Few places are as hostile to life as Chile's Atacama Desert. It's the driest place on Earth, and only the hardiest microbes survive there. Its rocky landscape has lain undisturbed for eons, exposed to extreme temperatures and radiation from the sun.

Recently, a team of astrobiologists from the EU funded MASE (Mars Analogues for Space Exploration) project descended 1.1 kilometers below Earth's surface to the Mars-like environment of the Boulby Mine in the UK looking for answers about life on other planets.

On The Road to Lake Untersee: We are completely packed up now, using the Everest tracked vehicle, pulling two sleds behind it.

The team is on the ice, having arrived ok at Novolazarevskaya Station yesterday afternoon.

I am currently in the high arctic sitting (Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, Canada) in a tent next to the Stolz Diapir spring site at Whitsunday Bay.

The Everest tracked vehicle is here with a nice large sled in the back and a cabin attached.

We have completed our work here at Lake Obersee, accomplishing most all of our objectives despite a late start due to stormy weather.

We made the first dives beneath the thick, perennial ice (3.6 m) of Lake Obersee yesterday.  

We have had pretty nice weather the last two days so we have taken advantage of it with a fair amount of work. Today we put up the tripod that will support the new met station I am deploying here at Lake Obersee.