Don’t peek at the answer until you’ve given this a good try! Then, scroll down a bit and the truth will be revealed to you.

Credit: NASA

What in the world is it?

The interior of an oyster shell? A magnified piece of lint? No, this is a satellite image of one of the most extreme places on Earth. It is Antarctica, one of the Earth’s last great frontiers and one of the most foreboding environment to life. Freezing temperatures battle against biologic metabolic functions. They also keep water in its solid, ice state, making the continent the driest “desert” on the planet – another challenge to life in this unforgiving environment. It is precisely for these reasons that Antarctica has come to be regarded as a laboratory for the inhospitable conditions that obtain extra-terrestrially in the solar system. As such, Antarctica has come to be known as the “closest place to Mars.” If you can survive here, well, you can survive almost anywhere.