A new instrument could allow astrobiologists to study chirality, or “handedness,” of amino acids on our solar system’s icy moons, asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects. Stephanie Getty, a technologist at NASA Goddard, was recently awarded a grant from NASA’s Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument Development (ASTID) program to work on the development of the Organics Analyzer for Sampling Icy Surfaces (OASIS) instrument.

“With an instrument like OASIS, we could get that much closer to understanding how organic chemicals formed in the solar system, whether the potential for life exists elsewhere, and what may have seeded life here on Earth,” according to Getty.