Oases for Life on the Mid-Caymen Rise

A team of oceanographers and astrobiologists is currently exploring one of the deepest points in the Caribbean Sea. The expedition is funded by NASA’s Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) program. Follow the team’s blog as they search for life in this extreme seafloor environment.

Blog by PI Chris German: http://oases-expedition.blogspot.com/
Blog by Master of R/V Cape Hatteras: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/chmaster/
An article concerning the expedition recently appeared in The Economist at: http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=14585735.

Source: [astrobio.net]

October 21, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal

Searching for Alien Life, on Earth

Mono Lake, just east of Yosemite National Park, is a place of bizarre natural beauty. It also boasts one of the highest natural concentrations of arsenic on Earth. The latter fact, says geomicrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, makes it a good spot to look for alien life. This is why researchers funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute have been searching the shores of Mono Lake for life whose biological makeup is fundamentally different than that of any known life on Earth.

Source: [astrobio.net]

October 5, 2009 / Written by: Henry Bortman

Sphere

Deep-ESP. Credit: Henry Bortman
A team of researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute conducted the first field test earlier this year of a new configuration of Deep-ESP. The device is designed to perform long-term studies of how deep-sea ecosystems respond to environmental changes.

The Deep-ESP project – ESP stands for Environmental Sample Processor – will provide scientists with a view of how deep-sea ecosystems respond over time to changes in environmental conditions.

Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]

June 15, 2009 / Written by: Henry Bortman

Alien Safari Part 2: Life Above and Below

At the most recent NASA Astrobiology Science Conference, a panel of scientists discussed different types of planets where we might find alien life. In the second part of this series, T.C. Onstott digs beneath the surface to look for life, and Peter Ward weighs the odds of finding complex life in space and time.

Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]

February 9, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal

NSF Announces New Ice-Core Drilling Agreements for Polar Research

The NSF’s Office of Polar Programs (OPP) recently announced new cooperative agreements, including a university collaboration to support, advise and conduct ice coring and drilling for polar research. Ice cores from the Earth’s poles provide invaluable insight into the history of Earth’s climate. Samples from ice cores have also revealed unique microorganisms in environments deep below the ice sheets in the arctic and antarctic. Studying life in the poles can yield clues about how life might survive on celestial bodies like Jupiter’s frozen moon, Europa.

For more information and program contacts, click here.

February 5, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal