NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Executive Summary

Project Reports

A Self-Perpetuating Catalyst for the Production of Organics in Protostellar Nebulae

Accomplishments of Graduate Student Yana Radeva

Advancing Techniques for in situ Analysis of Complex Organics

Astrobiology Sample Analysis Program (ASAP)

Breakdown of methane due to electric discharge: A Laboratory Investigation with Relevance to Mars

Chemical Models of Nebular Processes

Circumstellar Disk Evolution and Habitable Planet Formation

Composition of Parent Volatiles in Comets: Oxidized Carbon

Current Status and Future Bioastronomy with the Large Millimeter Telescope

Extrasolar Planets

Fingerprinting Late Additions to the Earth and Moon via the Study of Highly Siderophile Elements in Lunar Impact Melt Rocks

Organic and Inorganic Acids from Ion-irradiated Ices

Origin and Evolution of Organics

Origin and Evolution of Organics in Planetary Systems

Research Activities in the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory

Studies of solid-state acetylene in space and in the laboratory

Summer Undergraduate Internship in Astrobiology

X-ray emission from an intermediate-mass young star, protostar binary system and star-forming regions

EPO Reports

Astrobiology in the Secondary Classroom

Expanding NAI's E/PO Network to Include Other American Indian Nations and Tribes

Summer Undergraduate Internship in Astrobiology

Preserving Critical Continuity with Tribal Nations

Project Reports

Organized by Astrobiology Roadmap Objective

Goal 1: Understand the nature and distribution of habitable environments in the Universe

• Objective 1: Determine whether the atmosphere of the early Earth, hydrothermal or exogenous matter were significant sources of organic matter. (7 reports)

Goal 2: Explore for past or present habitable environments, prebiotic chemistry and signs of life elsewhere in our Solar System

• Objective 2: Develop and test plausible pathways by which ancient counterparts of membrane systems, proteins and nucleic acid were synthesized from simpler precursors and assembled into protocells. (7 reports)

Goal 3: Understand how life originates from cosmic and planetary precursors

• Objective 3: Replicating, catalytic systems capable of evolution, and construct laboratory models of metabolism in primitive living systems. (10 reports)

Goal 7: Determine how to recognize signatures of life on other worlds and on early Earth

• Objective 7: Identify the environmental limits for by examining biological adaptations to extremes in environmental conditions. (3 reports)