Right now, Mars is a reddish desert landscape – attractive but dead, and certainly not home to any little green men.

Their discovery showed that even tucked away in our innards – in the walls of our stomachs, subjected to vinegar-like pH levels, total darkness, the violent movements of our digestive systems, harmful enzymes and churning tides of food – life is able to resist and proliferate.

To solve that problem, a team of German researchers at the Technical University in Berlin figured that, instead of having a robot looking for microbes, it would be easier and cheaper to make the microbes come to the robot. The only ingredient they were lacking was the right bait.

The search for extraterrestrial life extends beyond Mars to include moons like Europa and Enceladus, which might harbor life-sustaining conditions. Discoveries such as extremophiles on Earth, capable of thriving in extreme environments,

Scientists suggest alien life may be microscopic, surviving in extreme environments like toxic clouds, icy moons, or even inside our own stomachs.

Astronomers have identified sulfur as a potentially crucial indicator in narrowing the search for life on other planets. While sulfur itself is not necessarily an indication of habitability, significant concentrations of sulfur dioxide in a planet's atmosphere can suggest that the planet is likely uninhabitable,

IIT Madras' ExTeM team pioneers solutions for space colonization, developing waterless concrete for Martian construction, and driving innovations for sustainable human life beyond Earth.