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Daniel Glavin Wins 2010 Nier Prize
Daniel Glavin, winner of the 2010 Nier Prize. Photo Credit: Chris Gunn
Daniel Glavin has been selected by the international Meteoritical Society as the recipient of the 2010 Nier Prize. The prestigious Nier Prize is awarded to young scientists performing valuable research in fields related to meteoritics and planetary science.
Dr. Glavin was presented with the prize for his work on extraterrestrial organic chemistry. By examining carbonaceous meteorites, Glavin and his team have made important contributions toward understanding why life uses only left-handed versions of amino acids. It turns out that molecules delivered to Earth in meteorites may have played a role in life’s eventual bias toward...Source: [NASA GSFC]
November 18, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Vatican Hosts Study Week on Astrobiology
This past week in Rome as part of the International Year of Astronomy, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hosted a Study Week on Astrobiology, an interdisciplinary event during which “cloistered astrobiologists confronted each other’s fields of research” and dialogued about the connections. The participants included many from the extended astrobiology community, including John Baross, David Charbonneau, Roger Summons, Andy Knoll, Chris Impey, Jonathan Lunine, Jill Tarter, Sara Seager, and Giovanna Tinetti.
“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an...
November 17, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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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
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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...
Source: [Link]
November 11, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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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
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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...
Source: [NASA Press Release]
November 6, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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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...
Source: [Link]
November 4, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
- 11/30 NAI Director's Seminar: Andrew Pohorille, "Is Water Necessary for Life?"
- UH Team Member Tobias Owen Receives 2009 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize in Planetary Sciences
- 11/10 University of Washington Astrobiology Seminar: Kevin Hand, "Joule Heating of the South Polar Terrain on Enceladus"
- Recently Published Research from the NAI
- Astrobiology Graduate Conference (AbGradCon) 2010
- NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) Program
- Two Post-doc Positions in Astrobiology Available at JPL, Caltech
- Teachers from Around the World Examine Life in Extreme Environments
- Astrobiology Teachers Academy
- Ice in the Solar System...in Your Classroom
- Call for Nominations for the 2010 Kavli Prize
- Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) Faculty Position Openings
November 4, 2009 
