I traveled to the tunnels of South Africa's Beatrix Gold Mine — a few hours outside of Johannesburg — to document zoologist Gaetan Borgonie’s search for organisms that survive in nature's most inhospitable conditions. 4,600 feet (or 1.4km) underground is a hot, cramped world, high in pressure and low in oxygen, but it’s also teeming with life. We were in search of the ‘Devil Worm’: a microscopic extremophile that can survive being frozen in liquid nitrogen, having almost no oxygen, and being dropped from a height of 65 kilometers. Borgonie theorizes that if it can be found two miles underground, then we might be able to find it on Mars. Furthermore, if a catastrophe such as an asteroid collision wipes out all life on the Earth's surface, then nematodes and other extremophiles could emerge from two miles underground through hot springs and kickstart life on the surface. In other words, Devil Worms could be the Adam and Eve of a barren, humanless Earth. Documentary here.
