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2006 Annual Science Report

SETI Institute Reporting  |  JUL 2005 – JUN 2006

Executive Summary

The SETI Institute (SI) NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) team is conducting a suite of coupled research projects in the co-evolution of life and its planetary environment. These projects address three of NASA’s Astrobiology Roadmap fundamental questions: (1) how does life begin and evolve; (2) does life exist elsewhere in the universe? and (3) what is the future of life on Earth and beyond? These projects begin by examining specific fundamental ancient transitions that ultimately made complex life possible on Earth. They will conclude with a synthesis that will bring many of the team’s investigations together into an examination of the suitability of planets orbiting M dwarfs for either single-celled or more complex life.

The astrobiology roadmap calls for a strategy “for recognizing novel biosignatures” that “ultimately should accommodate a diversity of habitable conditions, biota and technologies in the universe that probably exceeds the diversity observed ... Continue reading.

Field Sites
7 Institutions
1 Project Reports
0 Publications
0 Field Sites
Roadmap
Objectives

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 the study of various proposed formation mechanisms for different feature types such as ridges, bands, and chaotic terrain.

    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

Publications

  • There are no publications for this team in the 2006 annual report.

2006 Teams