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Project Reports

• Planetary Biology, Evolution and Intelligence

  Chris Chyba, Cynthia Phillips, Kevin Hand- The project has two components. The first, an overview of the astrobiological potential of various geological features on Europa, is proceeding well — we are continuing study of various proposed formation mechanisms for different features types such as ridges, bands, and chaotic terrain. The second, a search for current geological activity by comparing Galileo images taken on different orbits, is also in progress. We have performed a first-stage search of the Galileo Europa images to find overlapping images, and are currently working on an automated search method to make sure that we find all possible comparison images. We are also working on automated processing techniques.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2

• Establishment of the Goddard Analytical Astrobiology Laboratory

  This year Dworkin finalized construction of the laboratory infrastructure in Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) building 2, room W109.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.3 3.4

• Project 2. Extraterrestrial Materials: Origin and Evolution of Organic Matter and Water in the Solar System

  The abundant organic compounds in primitive meteorites and interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are thought to originate largely in the interstellar medium. However, this material may have been modified in the protoplanetary disk and has been modified to varying extents in the asteroidal parent bodies.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1 3.1

• An Astronomical Search for the Essential Ingredients for Life: Placing Our Habitable System in Context.

  Module 1: The Building Blocks of Life

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2 4.3

• Chemistry Models for Extrasolar Planets

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 6.1 7.1 7.2

• Project 3. Prebiotic Chemical and Isotopic Evolution on Earth

  The first focus of this project has been on the Archean sulfur cycle and understanding the significance of mass-independent sulfur isotope signals.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 4.1 7.1

• Geochemical Production of Methane on Mars

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 3.1 7.2

• Extrasolar Planetary Systems and the Potential for Terrestrial Planets

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 3.1

• Chemical Models of Nebular Processes

  The goal of this task is to determine the chemical composition of icy bodies and establish their potential for delivering pre-biotic organic materials and water to the young Earth and other planets.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 3.1

• Prebiotic Organics From Space

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 3.1 3.4 4.3 7.1 7.2

• Project 4. Prebiotic Molecular Selection and Organization

  Studies in molecular self-organization focused on two types of amphiphilic molecules, which are molecules that possess both hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions. These molecules tend to self-organize spontaneously in an aqueous environment.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2 3.4 4.1 7.1

• Re-Tracing Steps Towards a Habitable World: The Biogeochemical Evolution of Sulfur on the Early Earth.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 3.1 4.1 4.2 5.2 5.3 6.1 7.1

• Mass Extinction Events, the Longest Snowball Earth Event, the Evolution of Oxygenic Photosynthesis, and TPW Induced Perturbations of the Carbon Cycle.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.3 4.1 4.3 6.1

• Studies of Oxidized Carbon in Cometary Ice

  The second year accomplishments of Dr. Michael DiSanti (Co-I, Goddard Center for Astrobiology, NAI) fall into two distinct although related categories: (1) Ongoing research on the organic volatile composition of comets, and (2) E/PO-related activities

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• Project 6. Molecular and Isotopic Biosignatures

  Steele and Postdoctoral Fellow Marc Fries used the new WiTec Raman imaging system to begin the examination of in situ carbon formation in a variety of samples, including Precambrian rocks and samples from a Mars analog site in Svalbard

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 4.1 4.2 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2

• Astrobiology Winter School

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2 3.1 6.1 7.1

• Origin and Evloution of Organics in Planetary Systems

  This progress report summarizes astrobiology research done during the first year of funding from the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Washington University in St. Louis under the direction of Professor Bruce Fegley, Jr

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 3.1

• Project 7. Astrobiotechnology

  With continued support from NASA astrobiology instrument development funding (through the Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument Development, or ASTID, Program), as well as NAI funding, Steele and colleagues continued to develop biotechnology instrumentation for solar system exploration

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.2 5.3 6.2 7.1

• The Evolution of Organics in Space

  Understanding the nature of the natal interstellar cloud is crucial to understanding the chemistry of the solar nebula, and hence the chemistry of the Sun and planets. Since that cloud no longer exists, it is necessary to study the cores of existing dense interstellar clouds where stars are forming.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• Darwinian Chemistry

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1

• A Mechanism for the Association of Amino Acids With Their Codons and the Origin of the Genetic Code.

  The genetic code was elucidated forty years ago. Despite decades of effort, a satisfactory explanation why certain amino acids are assigned to certain codons has not been developed. A collaboration with Dr. Harold Morowitz of George Mason University and Dr. Eric Smith of the Santa Fe Institute has led to the proposal of a novel mechanism for the association of amino acids with their codons and the origin of the genetic code.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2

• Prebiotic Synthesis: Experimental Studies (Schoonen)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• The Abiotic Planetary Model: The Upper and Lower Boundary Condition on the Atmosphere

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 3.1 4.1 7.2

• Project 1. From Molecular Clouds to Habitable Planetary Systems

  Chambers developed a new semi-analytic model for the oligarchic growth stage of planet formation.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 3.1 7.2

• Cosmic Ice Laboratory: Organic Synthesis in Energetically Processed Ices

  In the Cosmic Ice Laboratory we simulate the low-pressure and temperature environment of space using a high-vacuum chamber and a cryostat. Ice samples condensed onto a cooled mirror inside the cryostat are irradiated with 1-MeV protons, to simulate cosmic-ray bombardment, or are photolyzed to simulate vacuum-UV exposure.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2 3.1 7.1

• Isotope Effects in Atmospheric Sulfur Chemistry (Castleman)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 4.1

• Brownlee and Matrajt

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• A New Paradigm for Organic Chemistry in the Nebula: Protostars as Chemical Factories

  Protostellar nebulae are oxygen rich, yet a significant quantity of organic matter is still evident in meteorites and in comets when one might predict that such materials should have reacted with the silicate dust to form large amounts of CO.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• Formation of Astrobiologically Important Molecules in Water-Rich Environments

  Our goal ultimate goal is to investigate the formation of biological molecules in water-rich environments. Water ice serves as the energy-transfer medium and active participant in a variety of radiation-driven chemistry reactions thought to be important in either the interstellar medium or the primordial solar nebula.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2

• Chiral Determinism and the Origin of Translation

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2 4.2

• VLA Observations of the Hot Molecular Core in the Young Stellar Object IRAS 16293-2422 and Proper Motions in the Orion Nebula

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• The Impact of Atmospheric Particles on Life

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1 2.2 3.1 4.1 4.3 7.1

• Cometary Water and Volatile Abundances

  any comets have been observed to have activity at large heliocentric distances on their inbound orbital legs at distances too far from the sun to be caused by sublimation of pure water ice.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2 3.1

• Deep Impact Target Characterization

  The Deep Impact mission is the first planetary mission to carry out direct experimentation on a cometary body by delivering a 360-kg impactor to comet 9P/Tempel 1 at 10.2 km/s on UT July 4, 2005. UHNAI team members were closely involved in the world-wide effort of ground- and Earth-orbital observations to characterize the target nucleus pre-impact and to observe throughout the period of Encounter

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2 3.1

• In Situ Measurements Protocols and Techniques for Analysis of Organics in Comets

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• Laser Mass Spectrometry Technique Development for Analysis of Complex Organics in Cometary and Meteritic Materials

  Theme 4 work at JHU/APL using laser time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) techniques continues in collaboration with the GCA team and external partners.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 7.1

• Studies of the Influence of X-Rays on the Environment of Stars in the Prebiotic Molecule Formation Era

  To produce pre-biotic materials in the cold circumstellar environment of the young Sun, high energy radiation may be required to stimulate chemical reactions of molecules.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

• Origin and Evolution of Organics in Planetary Systems

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.2 3.1

• The Organic Volatile Composition of Comets: A Window on the Early Solar System

  Our long-range objective is to establish a taxonomy for comets based on chemistry, rather than orbital dynamics. The formation temperature of a given comet can be constrained by measures of the ortho-para ratios in H₂O and by the isotopic enhancements (e.g., in deuterium) in selected volatile species.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1 3.1 4.1 4.3

• Chondritic Meteorites as Records of Aqueous Activity on Asteroidal Parent Bodies

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2 3.1