NASA Ames 2016 Summer Series. In our quest to explore other planets, we only have our own planet as an analogue to the environments we may find life. By exploring extreme environments on Earth, we can model conditions that may be present on other celestial bodies and select locations to explore for signatures of life. Dr. Penelope Boston, the Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames, describes her work in some of Earth’s most diverse caves and how they inform future exploration of Mars and the search for life in our solar system.