Astrobiologists train an AI to find life on Mars

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning could revolutionize the search for life on other planets. But before these tools can tackle distant locales such as Mars, they need to be tested here on Earth. A team of researchers have successfully trained an AI to map biosignatures -- any feature which provides evidence of past or present life -- in a three-square-kilometre area of Chile's Atacama Desert. The AI substantially reduced the area the team needed to search and boosted the likelihood of finding living organisms in one of the driest places on the planet. The results were reported on 6 March in Nature Astronomy1.