NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Ask an Astrobiologist
"I was wondering if we have ways of measuring the age of planets. If so, do we know which planets are oldest and which are youngest?"
  1. Content with the tag: “australia

  2. A search for primordial water from deep in the Earth's mantle

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 4

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

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 3

    Acquisition and Installation of a new Cameca ims 1280 ion microprobe

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES:

    Advancing Techniques for in situ Analysis of Complex Organics

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 2, 3, 3, 7

    Application of U-tube and fiber-optic distributed temperature sensor to characterize the chemical and physical properties of a deep permafrost and sub-permafrost environment at High Lake, Nunavut, Canada.

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 5, 5, 7

    Astrobiology Sample Analysis Program (ASAP)

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES:

    Biological potential of Mars

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 3

    Biosignatures in chemosynthetic and photosynthetic systems

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7

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

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2

    Chemical Models of Nebular Processes

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1

    Composition of Parent Volatiles in Comets: Oxidized Carbon

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES:

    Current Status and Future Bioastronomy with the Large Millimeter Telescope

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3

    Early Metabolic Pathways

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 3

    Early Metabolic Pathways

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3, 3

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

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1

    Formation and Detection of Hot-Earth Objects in Systems with Close-in Jupiters

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 1

    Formation of Planetesimals in a Dynamically Evolving Nebula

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1

    Genes that regulate photosymbiotic relationships

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2

    Habitable Planets

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 1, 2, 4

    Icelandic subglacial lakes

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 4, 5, 6

    Interplanetary Pioneers

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5, 6

    Microbial Communities and Activities in the Deep Marine Subsurface

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5, 5, 6, 6

    Modeling grain surface reaction pathways for large organic molecules

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3

    Organic and Inorganic Acids from Ion-irradiated Ices

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 3, 7

    Origin and Evolution of Organics

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 2, 3

    Origin and Evolution of Organics in Planetary Systems

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 3, 3

    Origin of Irregular Satellites

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1

    Prebiotic Organics from Space

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7

    Protist diversity in extreme environments

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 6, 7

    Recovery of comet 85P/Boethin for the Deep Impact Extended Mission

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2

    Research Activities in the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 2, 2, 3, 7

    Sediment-buried basement deep biosphere

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6

    Societal and Philosophical Aspects of Astrobiology

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 18

    Studies in Planetary Formation and Evolution

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 8, 9, 11, 12

    Studies of Organic Matter and Water in Meteorites

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 8, 9, 11

    The Main Belt distribution of basaltic asteroids

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2

    THE VYSOS PROJECT

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1

    Ultra-violet processing of ices in the Rosette Nebula

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3

    Understanding the Microbial Ecology of Geologically-based Chemolithoautotrophic Communities

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 4
  3. Oxygen in Earth's Atmosphere Before Great Oxidation Event


    NAI’s Astrobiology Drilling Program supported researchers in 2004 to obtain subsurface core samples from the Hamersley Basin in Western Australia. Those samples, representing the time just before the Great Oxidation Event, have been analyzed, and two research papers detailing the results (Anbar, et al. and Kaufman, et al.) appear in September 28, 2007 issue of Science. Both groups found unexpected, correlated changes that reveal the presence of small but significant amounts of O2 in the environment 2.5 billion years ago, ~50-100 milion years before the Great Oxidation Event, and a shift from lower O2 abundance prior to that time.

    Source: [Link]

    Tags , , , ,
    Comments Commenting has been closed.
  4. Photosynthesis in the late Archean


    A new study on carbon isotopes in sedimentary rocks from Western Australia by researchers from NAI’s Penn State and Carnegie Institution of Washington Teams supports the idea that small, shallow pools of water containing photosynthetic microbes existed on the early Earth ~ 2.72 Gya, about 300 million years before the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere. Their findings suggest a “global-scale expansion” of these habitats, and a progression away from anaerobic ecosystems and toward photosynthetic communities before the oxygenation of the atmosphere. This work was published in the early edition of this week’s PNAS.

    Source: [Link]

    Tags , , , , , ,
    Comments Commenting has been closed.
  5. A Mild, Habitable Hadean?


    NAI’s Mark Harrison of the UCLA team co-authored a study published in this week’s Science describing a titanium thermometer technique used to measure the temperature at which ancient zircons from the Jack Hills in Western Australia formed. The results paint a mild picture of the Hadean, complete with an atmosphere and liquid water.

    Source: [Link]

    Tags , , , , , ,
    Comments Commenting has been closed.
Tags