Maria Elena South, driest place on earth discovered in Atacama Desert, Chile

Researchers have discovered the driest location on Earth in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The site discovered is called as Maria Elena South (MES).
It was discovered by team of research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle, United States.
This discovered site is dry as Mars and has a mean atmospheric relative humidity (RH) of 17.3 percent and a soil RH of a constant 14 percent at a depth of one meter.
Soil value taken form the MES site matches the lowest RH measurements taken on Mars by the Mars Science Laboratory at Gale Crater. Thus, making these conditions to establish the fact that this site is as dry as those found recently on the Martian surface.
Apart from this scientist also have found some bacteria species living there in the soil profile.
This discovery also has toppled the Yungay region which was the driest area of the hyper-arid Atacama desert. Yungay region conditions were close to the so-called dry limit for life on Earth. However, with this discover MES is much drier than Yungay.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2015