"What scientific instruments on board space craft could be used to examine if a planet, or moon could sustain life and how would they do it? "
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Machine Evolution
Many scientists believe that life started out as nothing more than strands of proto-genetic material known as RNA. A new device automates studies of RNA evolution and could lend insights into the origin of life on Earth.
July 24, 2008 / Written by: James Kling
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Washington Post Covers Astrobiology
In yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post, writer Marc Kauffman discusses the “…scientific explosion taking place in astrobiology.”
July 21, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Signals from an Infant Earth
The oldest rocks so far identified on Earth are one-half billion years younger than the planet itself, so geologists have relied on certain crystals as micro-messengers from ancient times. Called zircons (for their major constituent, zirconium) these crystals “are the kind of mineral that a geologist loves,” says Stephen Mojzsis, an associate professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “They capture chemical information about the melt from which they crystallize, and they preserve that information very,...
July 15, 2008 / Written by: David Tenenbaum
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Extraterrestrial Nucleobases in the Murchison Meteorite
A recent study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters from NAI’s Teams at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and University of Wisconsin, shows that nucleic acids of extraterrestrial origin are present in the Murchison meteorite. Carbon-rich meteorites such as the Murchison are thought to be responsible for delivering biologically-relevant organic material to the young Earth. These results demonstrate that the nucleic acids discovered in the...
June 25, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Deep Hydrogen
Molecular hydrogen provides energy for many bacteria, in hot springs at Yellowstone and in rocks several kilometers beneath the surface. How did molecular hydrogen get inside these deep rocks, and what does this tell us about the origin of life on Earth?
June 16, 2008 / Written by: David Tenenbaum
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Making Sense of Mars Methane
Research on methane at a Mexican salt flat could help reveal the source of methane that has been detected in the atmosphere of Mars. But first scientists have to decipher the unique – and seemingly contradictory – isotopic signature of the Mexican methane.
June 9, 2008 / Written by: David Tenenbaum, Astrobiology Magazine
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New Round of Exo-Evo Grants Awarded
NASA’s Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program has made 35 new grant awards for research into the origin and early evolution of life, the potential of life to adapt to different environments, and implications for life elsewhere. Areas of research emphasis in the Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, one of four elements of the Astrobiology Program, are planetary conditions for life, prebiotic evolution, early evolution of life and the biosphere, and evolution of advanced life.
Planetary conditions for life will be...
April 27, 2008 / Written by: Linda Billings
