A new species, the bacteria Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator (“the bold traveller”), discovered deep in a gold mine, could be the key to life on other planets because of its unique ability to live in complete isolation, devoid of light and oxygen.

It gets its energy from the radioactive decay of uranium in the surrounding rocks and has genes to extract carbon from dissolved carbon dioxide and other genes to fix nitrogen, which comes from the surrounding rocks.

Chris McKay, of NASA’s Ames Research Center says that D. audaxviator is an amazing discovery, and represents the kind or organism that could survive below the surface of Mars or Saturn’s sixth largest moon Enceladus.