Discoveries in the Deep

NASA astronaut Michael Gernhardt at Pavilion Lake. Credit: Darlene Lim
Scientists from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency have been using Pavilion Lake as a testing ground for the future human exploration of other worlds. Pavilion Lake, in British Columbia, Canada, is home to a biological mystery. Microbialites, coral-like structures built by bacteria, in a variety of sizes and shapes, carpet the lakebed. That’s unusual for a freshwater lake like Pavilion. Exploration of Pavilion Lake is helping biologists understand this unique environment – and it’s also helping astronauts prepare for future human exploration of other worlds.

Source: [astrobio.net]

November 13, 2009 / Written by: Henry Bortman

Ethics of Space Exploration

Last week, the Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics hosted a panel to discuss Challenges Raised by Life in Space. Today on KQED’s radio show The Forum, host Michael Krasney interviews some of those panelists for a national audience. They discuss a range of topics from the value and moral standing of the diversity of potential life elsewhere in the universe, to the modification of extraterrestrial ecosystems to suit human needs, to possible forward contamination of other planets through exploration.

November 12, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

Eigenbrode Earns Chief Technologist’s Top Prize

The Office of the Chief Technologist selected scientist Jennifer Eigenbrode as its 2009 “IRAD Innovator of the Year” for her work verifying that a new sample-preparation method would benefit the SAM instrument on MSL. Image Credit: Chris Gunn
NASA Goddard scientist Jennifer Eigenbrode has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 IRAD Innovator of the Year award. Her work has added important capabilities to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, which will be included on the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). Dr. Eigenbrode’s work will allow MSL to analyze large carbon molecules if they are discovered on Mars, and could play an important role in determining the potential for past or present life on the Red Planet.

When MSL reaches Mars in 2012, the rover will analyze samples...

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Source: [Link]

November 11, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal

Success in Monterey Bay Canyon

Image Credit: Alberto Behar
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists in the Planetary Protection group, led by Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, teamed up with microbiologists and geochemists from Harvard University in the laboratories of Dr. Colleen Cavanaugh and Dr. Peter Girguis to deploy the NASA Hydrothermal Vent Biosampler (HVB) on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Vessel Pt. Lobos using the remotely operated vehicle Ventana.

The NASA HVB is able to collect large-volume samples of hydrothermal vent fluid. It can operate in extreme temperatures reaching 400°C and at depths of up to 6,500 meters. The HVB allows astrobiologists to...

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Source: [Link]

November 10, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal

Can Darwin Help Us Find Life Elsewhere?

UK’s The Register covered an NAI-sponsored event last week in Mountain View, CA near NASA Ames Research Center. The last in a year-long, evolution-themed series of public lectures helping celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, this lecture was entitled The Evolution of Astrobiology, and was given by John Baross from the University of Washington.

November 9, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

Astrobiologists Reproduce RNA Component in Laboratory

NASA astrobiologists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of RNA, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidines exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. The study appears in the September issue of Astrobiology.

“We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space,” said Michel Nuevo, research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “We are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in...

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Source: [NASA Press Release]

November 6, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

Oxygen Production in Earth's Early Oceans Predates the Great Oxidation Event

It is widely accepted that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth’s atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply. Called the “Great Oxidation Event” (GOE), the oxygen spike marks an important milestone in Earth’s history, the transformation from an oxygen-poor atmosphere to an oxygen-rich one paving the way for complex life to develop on the planet.

Two questions that remain unresolved in studies of the early Earth are when oxygen production via photosynthesis got started and when it began to alter the chemistry of Earth’s ocean and atmosphere.

A research team that includes members of NAI’s Arizona...

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Source: [Link]

November 4, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice