NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

2010 DDF Selections

The NASA Astrobiology Institute is pleased to announce selections for research awards resulting from its 2010 Director’s Discretionary Fund competition. The selections cover a wide range of research topics, including perchlorate salts in Mars analogue environments on Earth, the effects of the space environment on extremophilic bacteria, the search for extrasolar planets around M-stars, the potential for prebiotic organic synthesis in frost flowers, and the microbial diversity of domestic water heaters. Approximately $940K are allocated toward these 15 awards. The median award is $44K.

Selections were based on external reviews, with selection priority given to proposals that

• integrate the research of and realize synergies among the current NAI teams;
• expand the scope of NAI research (and the NAI community) in innovative ways, accepting some risk in return for high pay-off potential;
• respond in a timely way to new scientific results or programmatic opportunities;
• develop connections between astrobiology research and other NASA science programs, particularly NASA’s Earth Science Program;
• directly support flight programs, particularly through instrument development; and/or
• use funding particularly effectively, for example through leveraging or building on past investments

In addition, priority was given to supporting early career investigators.

Selected Research Projects

Proposal Title: Drilling the Serpentinizing Coast Range Ophiolite: a new integrative opportunity for the astrobiology community

Lead Investigator: Dawn Cardace, U Rhode Island, NASA Ames Research Center Team
Co-Investigators: Tori Hoehler, NASA ARC Team, Tom McCollum, U Colorado, Matt Schrenk, E. Carolina U/CIW Team
Summary:

The proposal seeks to explore the biogeochemical ecology and geomicrobiological processes associated with subsurface serpentinization at a land-based site in California. Current knowledge of serpentinization is limited to deep marine sites and surface terrestrial sites, which to date are not well studied, and are unfortunately subject to interactions with the atmosphere, surface water, and surface biology. The team will develop a “subsurface observatory” consisting of four shallow wells as a resource for the broader astrobiological community.

Proposal Title: Perchlorate, Water, and Life: the geomicrobiology of Mars analog soils

Lead Investigator: Mark Claire, U Washington, VPL Team
Co-Investigators: Chris McKay, NASA ARC, Sam Kounaves, Tufts U, David Catling, U Washington, VPL, Andrew Jackson, Texas Tech U, John Coates, U California, Berkeley, Anna Engelbrektson, U California, Berkeley, Kennda Lynch, Colorado School of Mines, Shaneen Braswell, U Winnipeg, Armando Azua, Pontificia Universida Católica de Chile

Summary:
This team will study perchlorate in the driest and most Mars-like environments of Earth, the Antarctic Dry Valleys and Chile’s Atacama desert. The team proposes a collection of studies to constrain how perchlorate is formed, deposited, transported, and microbially utilized in various hyper-arid regions. The proposed interdisciplinary work includes geochemical and microbiological analysis of existing samples, laboratory experiments on the flow of water through desert soils, comparison and characterization of Phoenix experiments to analog soils, and modeling the atmospheric chemistry of the formation of perchlorate and co-occurring sulfate and nitrate salts.

Proposal Title: Assessment of surface ice features as plausible sites for prebiotic organic synthesis from formaldehyde

Lead Investigator: Jody W. Deming, U Washington, VPL and JPL-Icy Worlds teams
Co-Investigators: George Cody, CIW, Vikki Meadows, U Washington, VPL

Summary:
Recent investigation of frost flowers (FF), centimeter-scale features that grow (at temperatures below –8°C) on the surface of new ice forming over natural bodies of water, has revealed that FF growing on sea ice contain high concentrations of formaldehyde (HCHO). This HCHO is considered a photolytic breakdown product of organic matter concentrated at the ice-atmosphere interface during FF formation. In a prebiotic ocean, HCHO might have originated from the breakdown of more complex organics derived from meteorites, hydrothermal vents or the rainout of organic haze, or been sourced directly to the ocean after formation in the atmosphere or at vents. Modeled effects of eutectic freezing on solute concentrations suggest that HCHO may reach millimolar levels within the brine fraction of FF. This team hypothesizes that brine concentration of HCHO and the availability of UV light and catalytic mineral surfaces combine to produce an environment conducive to prebiotic HCHO-based reactions, including formation of monosaccharides via the formose reaction. They will construct a novel eutectic-freezing chamber and conduct experiments to test this hypothesis, examining the products of UV light-driven HCHO condensation within FF grown from saline solutions of HCHO and mineral catalyst. Results will help to identify environmentally relevant settings for ribose production, a longstanding goal of researchers within the origin of life community, and inform the exploration of icy surfaces on other worlds. The eutectic freezing chamber can be used in future to advance the study of FF and their unique roles in the biogeochemical cycles of Earth’s polar regions.

Proposal Title: Multiple Sulfur Isotope Analysis of Organic Materials of Astrobiological Interest

Lead Investigators: Marilyn Fogel, Weifu Guo, Geophysical Laboratory, CIW Team
Co-Investigators: Conel Alexander, CIW, George Cody, Dionysis Foustoukos, CIW, Mihaela Glamoclija, CIW, Bjorn Mysen, CIW, Dominic Papineau, Boston College/CIW and Douglas Rumble, CIW, James Farquhar, U Md/CIW, Harry Oduro, U Md/CIW, Yumiko Watanabe, PSU, Hiroshi Ohmoto, PSU, Jennifer Eigenbrode, GSFC; Shuhei Ono, MIT

Summary:
This award will fund a new elemental analyzer (EA) and develop a continuous flow mass spectrometric method for simultaneous determinations of the C, N and multiple S isotopic compositions (i.e., d13C, d14N, d34S, D33S) of organic materials, by coupling the vario MICRO cube elemental analyzer with an existing mass spectrometer at CIW.

Proposal Title: In situ electrochemical profiling of Lake Vida, East Antarctica

Lead Investigator: Brian Glazer, U Hawaii Team

Summary:
This award provides funding for the recipient to participate in an expedition aimed at characterizing the geochemistry and microbiology below the ice cap of Lake Vida, East Antarctica. In particular, the proposal aims to obtain depth profiles of the main redox species produced as a result of anaerobic respiration processes, using voltammetric techniques and Au/Hg voltammetric electrodes, to obtain depth profiles in situ with a high spatial resolution, without altering the stratification such that the brine could be further collected for other measurements.

Proposal Title: Effect of Ionizing Radiation on Precursors of Biologically Important Molecules

Lead Investigator: Robert Hazen, Geophysical Laboratory, CIW Team
Co-Investigators: Gözen Ertem, National Institutes of Health

Summary:
This award will fund the acquisition of a Mars Simulation Chamber  (MSC) to study the survivability of organic compounds that are detected in meteorites and believed to be delivered to Earth and Mars by interplanetery dust particles and comets.

Proposal Title: Pilot Citizen Science Study of Distributed Domestic Water Heater Microbiology Diversity

Lead Investigator: Christopher House, Penn State Astrobiology Research Center at The Penn State U
Co-Investigator: John Peters, Astrobiology Biogeocatalysis Research Center at Montana State U

Summary
Presently, there is a growing interest in the biogeography of microorganisms. By looking at the genetic differences from isolates of similar microbes from across the globe, researchers are currently trying to understand the degree to which populations of microbes are isolated and whether this isolation suggests an allopatric speciation model for prokaryotes. We propose to conduct a citizen science pilot study of microbial diversity in water heaters to both (1) access the feasibility of basing a citizen science project on field microbiology, and (2) generate a first image of the biogeographic distribution of thermophilic microorganisms across the United States.

Proposal Title: Irradiance Effects on Cyanobacterial Alkane Production

Lead Investigator: Linda Jahnke, NASA ARC Team
Co-Investigators: Erich Fleming and Lee Prufert-Bebout, NASA ARC

Summary

Cyanobacterial biomarkers have yielded powerful clues illuminating early Earth history.  However, one of the most ubiquitous and important classes of cyanobacterial biomarkers (the alkanes) do not, as of yet, even have clearly identified cellular functions.  These specific biomarkers occur with great frequency in both the fossil record and in the world’s petroleum reserves.  They also often occur in significant quantities in field collected microbial mat samples and new isolates from field samples.  However, there is a notable paucity of alkanes in laboratory cultivated cyanobacterial biomass, especially in isolates maintained many generations removed from their field of origin i.e., from culture collections.

In this study, the potential for historically important terrestrial stress factors (Ultraviolet radiation –UV- and supersaturating visible light intensity) to impact cyanobacterial alkane production will be assessed, in order to elucidate if alkanes are produced or structurally modified to help cells tolerate these stresses. 

Proposal Title: Sample Return for Responses of Organisms to Space Environment (ROSE) Expose Flight Experiment

Lead Investigator: Rocco Mancinelli, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute

Summary:
This project will support an imminent spaceflight opportunity, intended to further the understanding of the mechanism by which halophiles physiologically adapt to environmental stresses. Support will provide funds to return and analyze samples from an ISS space flight, as well as ground control simulation experiments, that have been returned to the DLR in Cologne, Germany, of Synechococcus (Nägeli), a halophilic cyanobacterium isolated from the evaporitic gypsum-halite crusts that form along the marine intertidal, and Halorubrum Chaoviator a member of the Halobacteriacea isolated from an evaporitic NaCl crystal obtained from a salt evaporation pond.

Proposal Title: Coordinated micro-analytical approaches for in-situ analysis of Paleoproterozoic biological carbonaceous particles

Lead Investigator: Dominic Papineau, Boston College and CIW Team
Co-Investigators: Greg McMahon, Nanofabrication Laboratory, Boston College, Paul Strother, Weston Observatory, Boston College, Christian Hallmann, Department of Earth Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences, MIT team, Marilyn Fogel, Geophysical Laboratory, CIW team, Jianhua Wang, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, CIW team, Larry Nittler, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, CIW team, Timothy Rose, Department of Mineral Sciences, Smithsonian Institution.

Summary
One can envision that the first sample canister to be robotically returned from Mars will contain less than a thousand grams of fine- and coarse-grained sediments, bits of rocks, atmospheric gases, and perhaps small drill cores (MEPAG, 2008). The amount of material that will be distributed to different qualified laboratories in the scientific community of the various countries participating in this complex mission will undoubtedly be very small, perhaps a few tens of micrograms. This material will likely be distributed as processed (e.g. thin sections) and unprocessed samples (e.g. millimeter-sized bits of rocks). In order to minimize sample loss during the analysis of these precious samples and to maximize the return of scientific data on potential biosignatures, it is critical to develop coordinated micro-analytical in-situ approaches with state-of-the-art instruments. This project aims to prepare for the analysis of Mars Sample Return by combining non-destructive micro-analyses with minimally-destructive micro-fabricated targets of carbonaceous material. The overarching goal of this project is to study the petrography, crystallinity, and chemical and isotopic compositions of targets of carbonaceous material (CM) from Precambrian sedimentary rocks and meteorites to compare CM of unambiguously biological and nonbiological origins.
The work will be performed collaboratively with existing state-of-the-art instruments available at Boston College, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Proposal Title: Testing an ultra-stable Near-Infrared Frequency Comb with the Pathfinder Spectrograph at the Hobby Eberly Telescope

Lead Investigator: Steinn Sigurdsson, PSARC, Penn State U Team
Co-Investigators: Suvrath Mahadevan, PSU, L. Ramsey, PSU, C. Bender, PSU, R. Terrien, PSU, S. Osterman, CASA, U Colorado, Scott Diddams, NIST

Summary:
This team plans a commissioning run to test an ultra-stable laser frequency comb, as a calibration unit with the Pathfinder high resolution near infra-red spectrograph, at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. This spectrograph is designed to find low mass planets around M-stars, and a highly stable high precision calibrator, such as a near infra-red lasercomb, with a dense set of lines, will allow very accurate wavelength calibration and hence high precision velocity measurements. Development and testing of new high precision measurement techniques are essential elements in the path to a high precision radial velocity survey for potentially habitable planets around M dwarfs.

Proposal Title: A Bright Young Sun: Testing the Archaean Climate Paradox

Lead Investigator: Steinn Sigurdsson PSARC, Penn State U Team

Summary:
There is a long standing paradox in solar system history, that the young Sun is estimated to have been about 25% fainter than the current solar luminosity. Yet there is evidence for prevalent liquid water on the Earth, and probably also Mars, suggesting a very large greenhouse effect, or possibly also much lower albedo. Geochemical evidence strongly suggests only a moderate greenhouse effect and cloud cover and rock albedo ought to preclude a very low overall albedo. A solution, previously advanced, is for the Sun to have been ~ 2% more massive, leading to a ~ 12% higher initial luminosity than the default estimate, due to higher luminosity and smaller planetary orbital radius. The Sun would then lose the excess mass through a strong wind, tapering off on a timescale of a few hundred million years. A new stellar evolution code, MESA, allows rapid, time explicit modeling of stellar evolution for a broad range of stellar parameters. Preliminary results suggest that an initial mass solar model of 1.02 solar masses may converge strongly on the current measured solar structure. This would account for the early warm Earth, and the hints of liquid water on Mars, and substantially change our perspective on the evolution of the early Solar Systam and the origins of life.

Proposal Title: Towards other Earths: Achieving high velocity precision with a stable nearinfrared spectrograph

Lead Investigator: Steinn Sigurdsson, PSARC, Penn State U Team
Co-Investigators: Suvrath Mahadevan, PSU, L. Ramsey, PSU, C. Bender, PSU, R. Terrien, PSU

Summary:
The team requests funding for a hardware upgrade to a Pathfinder high resolution near infra-red spectrograph, installed at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The spectrograph is designed to find low mass planets around M-stars, and will provide increased throughput and higher velocity precision, and a path to further engineering upgrades in throughput and precision. This is a critical element in the path to a high precision radial velocity survey near infra-red spectrograph for a northern hemisphere 10m class telescope.

Proposal Title: Virus Preservation in Silica, Halite, and Hot Spring Sediments

Lead Investigator: Kenneth Stedman Portland State U, NASA Ames Team
Co-Investigators: Sherry Cady, Portland State University, Linda Jahnke, NASA Ames, Mark Young, Montana State U, John Peters, Montana State U, David DesMarais, NASA Ames

Summary
Viruses are the most abundant biological entity on Earth outnumbering all other organisms by at least an order of magnitude. Given their ubiquity and abundance it is surprising that the paleontological record of viruses is practically non-existent. Virus preservation has been poorly studied despite the fact that viruses can be distinguished from their host due to their distinctive morphology and lipid composition, both of which indicate the potential for unique viral biosignatures. High silica hydrothermal ecosystems and evaporative brines are excellent systems for identifying viral biosignatures as these environments are well known to preserve microbial biosignatures and they are analogs for non-earth ecosystems. The team proposes two laboratory investigations with similar lipid-containing viruses, STIV and SH1, to determine the preservation potential of viruses in precipitating solutions. Specifically, the team proposes to silicify STIV and characterize morphology and lipids of the viruses post mineralization, and entrap SH1 within evaporate brine crystals and characterize their infectivity and lipid signature over time. They will also examine virus lipids in Boiling Spring Lake sediments to determine if an environmental virus lipid signature is detectable. Results of these studies will be the first understanding of the preservation potential of lipid-containing viruses, and lead to better characterization of silicified viruses and the examination of viruses within evaporate minerals. More broadly, it could revolutionize biomarker research by moving it to the nano-scale, and possibly allow the detection of the first known naturally occurring virus “fossils”, on Earth and possibly in non-Earth samples.

Proposal Title: Survival of Sugars in Ice/Mineral Mixtures Upon High Velocity Impact: Simulating the Impact of Comets and Meteorites into Early Earth

Lead Investigator: Nicolle Zellner, New York Center for Astrobiology, Albion College, RPI team
Co-Investigators: Vanessa McCaffrey, Albion College, Murthy Gudipati, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech

Summary
Understanding the delivery and preservation of organic molecules in meteoritic material is important to understanding the origin of life on Earth. The NASA Astrobiology Roadmap (Des Marais et al. 2008) lists understanding how habitable planets acquire organic compounds and how organic compounds are assembled into more complex molecular structures as important research objectives. Additionally, delivery and preservation of organic molecules, volatiles, and water were highlighted in two science initiatives at the NAI Strategic Science Initiative Workshop in Tempe, AZ (May 2009). Though we know that organic molecules are abundant in meteorites, comets, and interplanetary dust particles, few studies have examined how impact processes affect their chemistry and survivability under extreme temperatures and pressures. This study will examine how impact events may change the structure of simple sugars, both alone and when combined with ice mixtures. Future experiments will include minerals. These impact experiments will allow us to understand how sugar chemistry is affected by high pressure events and to contrast the survival probabilities of sugars in meteorite and comet impacts. These experiments will thus allow us to better understand how organic molecules are affected during their delivery to Earth.