Goals

How Does Life Begin and Develop?

Goal 1
How Life Arose on Earth

Goal 2
Organization of Matter into Living Systems

Goal 3
How Life Evolves

Goal 4
Coevolution of the Biosphere and the Earth

Does Life Exist Elsewhere in the Universe?

Goal 5
Limits for Life

Goal 6
Habitable Planets

Goal 7
Signature of Life on Other Worlds

Goal 8
Life on Mars and Europa

What is Life's Future on Earth and Beyond?

Goal 9
Environmental Change on Earth

Goal 10
Terrestrial Life in Space

Goals

In order to answer the fundamental questions of astrobiology, the NASA Astrobiology program pursues the following science goals:

Question: How Does Life Begin and Develop?

Goal 1: Understand how life arose on the Earth.

Goal 2: Determine the general principles governing the organization of matter into living systems.

Goal 3: Explore how life evolves on the molecular, organism, and ecosystem levels.

Goal 4: Determine how the terrestrial biosphere has co-evolved with the Earth.

Question: Does Life Exist Elsewhere in the Universe?

Goal 5: Establish limits for life in environments that provide analogues for conditions on other worlds.

Goal 6: Determine what makes a planet habitable and how common these worlds are in the universe.

Goal 7: Determine how to recognize the signature of life on other worlds.

Goal 8: Determine whether there is (or once was) life elsewhere in our solar system, particularly on Mars and Europa.

Question: What is Life's Future on Earth and Beyond?

Goal 9: Determine how ecosystems respond to environmental change on time-scales relevant to human life on Earth.

Goal 10: Understand the response of terrestrial life to conditions in space or on other planets.