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Published online 17 March 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050314-12
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Roving robot finds desert life
Chilean tests are perfect practice for Mars exploration.
An autonomous robot has found life in one of the most lifeless places on Earth: the Atacama desert in northern Chile, thought to be a close analogue of Mars's arid surface.
"Our life detection system worked very well, and something like it may ultimately enable robots to look for life on Mars," says Alan Waggoner, one of the expedition team members from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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