Explanation:

Only statements 2&3 are correct.

 Recently, researchers exploring Earth’s driest hot desert, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, have uncovered a hidden microbial world 13 feet beneath the surface.

• The Atacama Desert is a 600-mile-long (1,000 kilometers) plateau in the north of Chile, near the borders of Peru, Bolivia and Argentina in South America.

•  It is the driest non-polar desert in the world, receiving very little precipitation and experiences extreme aridity. 

• Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is the name for a group of astronomical observatories  located at an altitude of over 4,800 m (15,700 ft) in the Atacama Desert  of northern Chile.

• The exceptionally arid climate of the area is inhospitable to humans, but creates an excellent location for millimetre, submillimeter , and mid-infrared astronomy.

• The discovery of a rich microbial biosphere buried deep beneath the Atacama Desert’s surface sheds light on the resilience of life in extreme environments and has implications for the search for life on Mars.

• The researchers propose that these microbes survive at depth by extracting water from gypsum, a mineral present in the Atacama Desert’s soils. The reaction between gypsum and water can release water under certain conditions, providing a potential source of hydration for the microbes.

Hence option 2nd is correct.