It's nice to come here and contemplate what it would be like to be the first astronaut on Mars, and how that would feel.

If it feels something like this, it's pretty cool.

As fascinating as this location looks above ground, it's what's under these rocks that brought me here.

For decades, it has been believed that nothing lives in Beacon Valley beyond relatively simple forms of life like bacteria due to the harsh and salty nature of the environment here.

But our team has just made an exciting new discovery.

Burrowed in the permafrost, a unique animal has found a way to survive in this environment.

So we're out here today with the Soils Team on the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research group.

The Soils Team has actually been able to detect some nematodes that are surviving out here, which is incredibly exciting.

To think about all of the types of life that can live in this Mars-like environment, it says so much about what we are learning about how life can survive here on Earth, but also about the limits of where life can survive in outer space on other planets and moons.

Places that we might think are not very habitable, might in fact be inhabited.

Amongst the rocky terrain, the team found a few small Goldilocks spots, places where a rock absorbs just enough sunlight to heat a tiny patch of ice into liquid water.

This creates a suitable habitat for a very special kind of nematode.

Remarkable for its ability to not only tolerate, but prefer dry and salty environments, the Scottnema is notable for being endemic to Antarctica.

Slithering through the thin channels of salty water that cling to the rocks, these tiny worms, no thicker than a strand of hair, are able to endure and even thrive in this subzero maze.

Their secret?

A natural antifreeze running through their bodies, preventing ice and desiccation from claiming their fragile forms.