Armando Azua-Bustos

TED Talk by Armando Azua-Bustos

How can Earth teach us about extraterrestrial life? In his TED Talk, The most Martian place on Earth, Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos takes us on a tour of the Atacama Desert, his childhood home now turned into his astrobiological laboratory. Searching for signs of life on Mars, or other planets, requires careful understanding of how organisms can survive in dry and extreme environments, and Dr. Azua-Bustos’ research helps to reveal the conditions that we might find life both there and elsewhere. […]

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First Short Story Collection Released

We are pleased to announce that the first volume of the Blue Marble Space Short Story Collection is now available! This volume, titled Tales From Spaceship Earth, includes stories from six of our scientists and is the first in an ongoing series of science-informed fiction. This collection of stories reflects an intersection of each author’s knowledge of science and vision of the future. These unique perspectives range from the near-term evolution of the space station program, to the beginnings of […]

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Adviser to Senate of Chile

Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos has been appointed as Scientific Adviser to the Senate of Chile. Dr. Azua-Bustos’ responsibilities include providing advice or clarifications on a wide range of scientific and technology-related activities that pertain to policies in or affecting Chile. Congratulations to Dr. Azua-Bustos as he serves his community in this role.

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Atacama Research Featured in HuffPo

Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos was recently featured in a Huffington Post article on the extreme limits of life in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Dr. Azua-Bustos discusses his team’s recent discovery of bacterial species at María Elena South, a location previously thought too dry to sustain life. The researchers are now investigating whether any such “dry limit” for life exists on Earth at all, and they are continuing to search for habitable environments with even less available water than at María Elena South. […]

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Atacama Research Featured in Chilean News

An interview with BMSIS research scientist Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos recently appeared in the newspaper El Mercurio in Chile. The article features discussion of Dr. Azua-Bustos’ research in the context of understanding extremely dry planetary environments and possible analogs with sites explored by the Mars Curiosity Rover. [Read the full text in El Mercurio]

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Dr. Azua-Bustos Wins Chilean Scientific Photo Contest

The Chilean National Commission for Scientific Research and Technology (CONICYT) recently sponsored a photography contest, and our own Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos has won first place! The photo (above) was taken inside a cave of the Coastal Range of the Atacama. Here, Dr. Azua-Bustos and colleagues found a very primitive microalgae of the Cyanidium genus, which was able to photosynthesize with extremely low levels of light. This finding is of astrobiological interest because if photosynthetic life exists on Mars, then it […]

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“Hijos de las Estrellas”

A new Documentary show titled “Hijos de las Estrellas” features BMSIS research scientist Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos as an interviewee. Providing an overview of contemporary planetary exploration. Dr. Azua-Bustos contributes to the discussion through a guided tour of his research of the Atacama Desert—which may hold some clues to undertsanding the environment of Mars and the role of water in life. The show will air soon on television in Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and other Latin American Countries, and you can stay […]

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Podcast: Finding life at the driest place on Earth

Our “Beer with BMSIS” podcast for November features a conversation with BMSIS research scientist Armando Azua-Bustos about his research goal of Finding life at the driest place on Earth. The “astrobiologist from the desert”, Dr. Azua-Bustos leads a conversation about the various forms of exotic life that exist–and might yet be found–in the dry deserts of the world. Focusing his research on the environment of the Atacama desert in Chile, Dr. Azua-Bustos explains the strategies he uses to search for […]

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Children’s Book Published by Armando Azua-Bustos

Are we alone among aaaaall these stars? While astrobiologists continue to ponder this question, BMSIS research scientist Armando Azua-Bustos published a children’s book to help explain the ideas and wonder of the search for life to young people (and their parents). The book is written for children in order to introduce them, in very simple terms, to astrobiology, the understanding of the origin of life on Earth and the possibility of its existence elsewhere in the Universe from the scientific […]

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