PHOTO OF THE DAY February 12, 2005  

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Where Victoria Land, Antarctica
When 1997
Photographer Maria Stenzel

This promontory's sandstone formations provide habitat for communities of algae, bacteria, and fungi. These communities have colonized about 80 percent of the rock formation.

Similarities between surface conditions on Antarctica and Mars lead some scientists to study these organisms as potential analogues of Martian life.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Timeless Valleys of the Antarctic Desert," October 1998, National Geographic magazine)

News story: Earth Microbes Point to Life on Mars
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