"Is there anything (just in our solar system) that remains to be discovered or that you do not understand?"
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Salt Discovered in Saturn's Outermost Ring
For the first time, scientists working on NASA’s Cassini mission have detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn’s outermost ring. Detecting salty ice indicates that Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which primarily replenishes the ring with material from discharging jets, could harbor a reservoir of liquid water — perhaps an ocean — beneath its surface.
Cassini discovered the water-ice jets in 2005 on Enceladus. These jets expel tiny ice grains and vapor, some of which escape the moon’s gravity and form Saturn’s outermost ring. Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer has examined the composition of those grains and found salt within...
Source: [NASA Press Release]
June 24, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Rock Bands Spin an Oxygen Record
The rise of oxygen on early Earth may have been caused by a microbial changing of the guard between methane-producers and oxygen-producers. This swap may have been initiated by a drop in the ocean’s nickel abundance. Continuing studies of the world’s largest iron ore deposits could cement the case.
Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
June 21, 2009 / Written by: Michael Schirber
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A New Way to Keep Clean
It is almost impossible to get a spacecraft completely clean before launch. Therefore, missions to other planets carry some risk of forward contamination – where microorganisms from Earth travel along with the spacecraft to its destination. This is a big problem in the search for life on planets like Mars, because you don’t want to contaminate the site you’re going to be studying. To help combat this problem, a team of scientists funded by a NASA ASTEP award have developed a new cleaning protocol that could be used for future missions to Mars and beyond.
Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
June 9, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Microbial Habitability During the Late Heavy Bombardment
Credit: Don Davis/NASAIn a new paper in the current issue of Nature, NAI Postdoctoral Fellow Oleg Abramov at the University of Colorado, Boulder leads a modeling study investigating the degree of thermal metamorphism of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) on the crust of the young Earth. The models were designed to recreate the effect of the LHB on the Earth as a whole, with special attention to the impact on a possible subsurface or near-surface primordial microbial biosphere.
The team’s analyses revealed that there is no plausible situation in which the habitable zone could...
May 20, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Planetary Science Decadal Survey: White Papers Posted for Comment
Comments are being solicited from members of the astrobiology community on the following paper(s) that will be submitted to the 2009-2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. Papers will be revised based on community feedback. Additonal papers will be posted here as they become available.
- Astrobiology Research Priorities for Exoplanets (Last Updated: May 28, 2009)
- Astrobiology Research Priorities for Mercury, Venus, and the Moon (Added: June 8, 2009)
- Astrobiology Research Priorities for Mars (Added: June 10, 2009)
- Astrobiology Research Priorities for the Outer Solar System (Added June 15, 2009)
Please send comments to ps_decadal@nx.arc.nasa.gov no later than...
May 20, 2009 / Posted by: Marco Boldt
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Darwin in a Test Tube
Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have discovered a way to make molecules evolve and compete according to the laws of Darwinian evolution. Using RNA, the researchers were able to demonstrate that only the fittest molecules survived in the presence of a limited resource. When resources were plentiful, molecules would become increasingly specialized through generations of replication.
This fascinating work is helping astrobiologists better understand the processes that underlie evolution. Additionally, the results could shed some light on how primitive molecules on Earth first gave live to living organisms.
The work was funded through NASA’s Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology...Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
May 1, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Reanimating Extinct Genes
Can evolution be played over again in the lab? A group of researchers plans to insert an ancient gene in a modern day bacteria and see if this gene will mutate back to its current-day form. The results will give insight into how unique the evolutionary path may be.
Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
April 27, 2009 / Written by: Michael Schirber
