Mars Science Laboratory Shakedown in the High Arctic

Members of the AMASE team (AMASE stands for Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition) last month completed their fourth field season on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. They went to test out instruments similar to those that will fly on an upcoming mission to Mars, and to perform a field test of a prototype rover, Cliff-bot, that is capable of climbing up and down 80-degree slopes.

Spitsbergen is the largest island in the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago, which lies between the northern tip of Norway and the northern polar ice cap. It is an inviting destination for astrobiology researchers because...

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February 1, 2008 / Posted by: Yael Kovo

Hydrocarbons on Saturn's Moon Hyperion

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn’s moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life.

Source: [Link]

August 6, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Looking for Life in All the Right Places

This new video from JPL shows how NASA astrobiologists are gathering exciting clues that will help them pick the best spots to search for possible signs of life beyond Earth.

Source: [Link]

July 30, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Extracellular Protein-Metal Aggregates: A New Biosignature?

Deep inside a flooded mine in Wisconsin, scientists from NAI’s University of California, Berkeley Team have discovered an environment in which bacteria emit proteins that sweep up metal nanoparticles into immobile clumps. Their finding may lead to innovative ways to remediate subsurface metal toxins, and have exciting implications for identifying biosignatures on Earth and other worlds. The research, published in the June 14th issue of Science, was done in collaboration with a team from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Source: [Link]

June 14, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Salinity of Europa's Ocean

New research from NAI’s SETI Institute Team published online in Icarus today outlines the empirical range of salt concentrations permitted for Europa’s ocean. Solutions within the range imply high, near-saturation salt concentrations and require a Europan ice shell of less than 15 km thick, with a best fit at 4 km ice thickness. The paper examines the implications for subsurface habitability.

Source: [Link]

February 27, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Liquid Water on Mars: Is It Still Flowing?

The scientific strategy of NASA’s Mars exploration can be summarized as “Follow the water.” The habitability of Mars, past or present, is intimately tied to the presence of liquid water. Since the first orbiting spacecraft, Mariner 9, surveyed the planet in the early 1970s, we have known that the Mars polar caps are composed in part of ice, and we have seen large channels cut by water that flowed on the surface billions of years ago. Two of the most important recent discoveries on Mars were “gullies” that indicate much more recent surface flows, less than a million years old, and the evidence from rovers on the surface that shallow ponds or seas of salty water must have once existed, although they may have been transient. However, all these indications of surface water are old – whether the age is measured in millions or billions of years. Now, in what looks to be one of the most important recent discoveries about Mars, we have photographic evidence that flows of liquid water have taken place in the past seven years! The change of perspective from billions or millions of years to something that happened in the twenty-first century could be profound.

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January 10, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

NAI Scientists Successfully Drill into Subglacial Lake

Last month, scientists from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team, in collaboration with Icelandic research institutes, successfully drilled into and sampled a lake deep beneath a glacier in Iceland. The lake and other subglacial lakes are the focus of studies of life in “extreme environments,” and may resemble potential habitats on Mars and icy satellites in the outer Solar System

Source: [Link]

July 7, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe