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3/11/2008
NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make an unprecedented "in your face" flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12... |
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3/6/2008
A new article on Space.com from Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, outlines the breadth of research encompassed by astrobiology, and the current state of knowledge in the field. |
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2/21/2008
NAI's David Morrison spoke with US News and World Report recently about the far-flung questions in his 'Ask an Astrobiologist' column. The interview also discusses how astrobiologists search for life on other planets... |
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1/14/2008
This LA Times review of the new book 'The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe' by Chris Impey of the University of Arizona describes the book as "wonderfully readable...". |
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1/11/2008
Evgenya Shkolnik of NAI's University of Hawai'i Team reported this week at AAS in Austin that she and her colleagues have discovered an extremely rare quartet of stars orbiting each other within a region smaller than Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Did they originate in this configuration or were they forced together by a dense disk of gas in their youth? |
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12/11/2007
A new set of experiments designed to test how bacteria change in response to space radiation are going up with space shuttle Atlantis and will be delivered to the International Space Station. Once there they will reside for more than a year on an external space station platform called EXPOSE. Space.com has the story... |
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11/14/2007
NAI's new team at Montana State has just released their new website! It describes the research of each team member, including those at Stony Brook University and Temple University. The range of academic educational programs and outreach activities of the team are also described. |
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10/26/2007
NAI MIRS Program alum Michael Ceballos, now a research assistant professor at the University of Montana, has been appointed the lead the development of their two new Native American Research Laboratories. The labs are dedicated to training Native students in the sciences, and are the first research labs at any university in the nation developed specifically to provide hands-on, cross-disciplinary research training opportunities for Native American undergraduate and graduate students. |
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10/16/2007
Astrobiologist Cindy Van Dover is the subject of an interview in today's New York Times science section. The article discusses her career in marine ecology, and her pioneering role in exploring the ocean with the submersible Alvin. |
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10/12/2007
On today's edition of NPR's Science Friday, new work from NAI's MBL team is featured, focusing on diversity of bacteria at hydrothermal vents. The team conducted a survey of DNA from deep-sea samples, discovering thousands of new kinds of marine microbes at two deep-sea hydrothermal vents off the Oregon coast. |
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10/11/2007
NAI's new team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison has released its new website! Check it out to learn more about the people involved and the research they're doing. The website also lists opportunities for graduate students and post docs. |
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9/28/2007
Kim Binstead from NAI's University of Hawai'i Team, just back from a Mars Society-sponsored simulated mission to Mars in the Canadian High Arctic, says she plans to respond to NASA's recent call for astronaut candidates. Good Luck Kim! |
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9/24/2007
Today's "Prickly City" comic strip features the work of Norbert Schorghofer of NAI's University of Hawai'i Team. Apparently, understanding the history of ice ages on Mars doesn't have a positive effect! |
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9/20/2007
Andrew Steele of NAI's CIW Team, a leader in astrobiotechnology for many years, is behind this current experiment, called the "Life Marker Chip." A collection of immunoassays which have the potential to detect trace levels of biomarkers in the Martian environment, it launched earlier this week on ESA's BIOPAN 6 experiment platform. The craft will spend 12 days in orbit, during which time the onboard experiments, including the Chip, will be exposed to microgravity. |
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9/14/2007
The University of Arizona NAI Team and their "Astrobiology and the Sacred" project present "Astrobiology and the Arts," a two-day symposium next week featuring readings of new fiction, panel discussions, music and dance performances, multimedia presentations, and lectures from the nexus of these two grand endeavors. |
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9/10/2007
NAI's "Philosopher in Residence" Carol Cleland of the University of Colorado Team is featured in this thought provoking article from SEED magazine. It gives a history of the problem of defining life, from Schrodinger's "that which avoids the decay into equillibrium," through the molecular revolution, and examines it in the context of ALH84001. |
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9/10/2007
This week's issue of Nature features an interview with David "Paddy" Paddington of NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory Team discussing his involvement with the Encyclopedia of Life project. Debuting in early 2008, the EOL will be a living catalogue of biodiversity, with one webpage for each of Earth's 1.8 million species. |
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8/6/2007
A new article in the Wall Street Journal ties together new discoveries from the frontiers of astrobiology science. The author speculates that "Our knowledge of the universe we call home -- and the search for water worlds hospitable to life -- is expanding almost as quickly as the cosmos itself." |
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8/6/2007
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn's moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life. |
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7/30/2007
This new video from JPL shows how NASA astrobiologists are gathering exciting clues that will help them pick the best spots to search for possible signs of life beyond Earth. |
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7/30/2007
This new article from Science & Spirit magazine cogitates on 'following the water' in the search for life elsewhere, and the relationship between water and enlightenment in mythology and human psychology. |
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7/20/2007
Scheduled for launch in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission is designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic's ice-rich soil. A new teaser animation about the mission is available - click here to view it. |
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7/20/2007
Maggie Turnbull, a 2004 NAI Postdoctoral Fellow and now an astrobiologist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, was recently named a "Genius" by CNN for her work cataloging stars most likely to develop planets that could support life and intelligent civilizations. Congratulations Maggie! |
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7/2/2007
Last week, teachers in the SETI Institute's Astrobiology Summer Science Experience workshop probed questions about the Earth's formation, including "where did the water come from?" The answer discussed was comets, and a classroom activity on how to make them is shared on Space.com... |
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6/21/2007
A recent publication by members of the NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington Team was honored this week with the Jubilee Award from the Geological Society of South Africa. The team's research, published in the South African Journal of Geology, concerned sulfur isotopes in ancient rocks in South Africa. Congratulations CIW! |
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6/18/2007
Julie Huber from NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory Team received a 2007 L’Oréal USA Fellowship for Women in Science. Now in its fourth year, the highly selective L’Oréal USA Fellowships annually recognize and reward five up-and-coming female scientists who are conducting innovative and groundbreaking research. Please join NAI in congratulating Dr. Huber! |
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6/12/2007
The enigmatic Saturnian moon Titan is still yielding surprising new details years after scientists first pierced its thick haze veil. The vision now emerging of Saturn's largest moon, with its giant dunes and oceanless surface, is perhaps a glimpse of Earth's desert future. Space.com has the story... |
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6/7/2007
On route to Mercury, the MESSENGER spacecraft is doing a flyby of Venus where, on June 5th, it sent out a laser beam to measure the location of Venus' cloud decks. "We are treating the Venus flyby as a full dress rehearsal for the first flyby of Mercury in January 2008," says Sean Solomon, PI of both the MESSENGER mission and NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington Team. |
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6/6/2007
Please join NAI in congratulating Lou Allamandola of the NASA Ames Research Center Team who was recently bestowed the 'Presidential Rank of Meritorious Senior Professional' in a ceremony held at Ames on June 5th. Congratulations Lou! |
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5/17/2007
Astronomers have discovered a far away planet around the M Dwarf star Gliese 581 that might be similar to Earth, but does it have life? Space.com's SETI Thursday has the story... |
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5/17/2007
The Spring 2007 European Edition of the Astrobiology Magazine focuses on astrobiology research and news from France. The edition features new articles, interviews, and op-ed section, and a special story on testing the Panspermia hypothesis. |
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5/9/2007
The NASA Astrobiology Institute is pleased to announce the selections of four new research teams: the University of Wisconsin, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Montana State University. These new teams join the twelve others selected to be part of the Institute in 2003. Welcome to the NAI! |
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5/3/2007
Astrobiologist Tullis Onstott has made this year’s “Time 100,” an annual list of “the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world,” according to list-maker Time magazine. |
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5/2/2007
Congratulations are due to astrobiologists Donald E. Canfield and Paul G. Falkowski for their election to the distinguished ranks of membership in the National Academy of Sciences. |
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5/1/2007
A rocky planet not much larger than Earth has been detected orbiting a star close to our own neighborhood in the Milky Way, and the European astronomers who found it say it lies within the star's "habitable zone," where life could exist, possibly in oceans of water. |
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4/18/2007
Imaging Earth-like exoplanets is a daunting challenge because the dim starlight that such relatively small worlds reflect is easily overpowered by the glare of their far larger, brighter parent stars. Now two astrophysicists at JPL have devised new techniques that can overcome this glare, enabling future space telescopes to snap pictures of Earth-like exoplanets up to 10 billion times fainter than the stars they orbit. |
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4/13/2007
Margaret Tolbert from NAI's University of Colorado, Boulder Team, is receiving the 2007 UC-Boulder Hazel Barnes Prize. This prize is the University's most prestigious faculty award. Tolbert has earned it, UC-Boulder has announced, "for her contributions to understanding the chemistry and climate of planetary atmospheres, including past and present," and "for her teaching and research
efforts with undergraduates and graduate students, 15 of whom have won prestigious NASA and Environmental Protection Agency fellowships in recent years." Congratulations Margaret! |
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4/10/2007
EVA continues at the Mars Desert Research Station where graduate student Irene Schneider from the NAI Penn State team is currently on expedition:
"Biology: Encountered pond with trees on second stop, unique flower sample collected.
Geology: First stop discovered small alcove in Morrison formation about 15 feet deep. Second stop yielded lake discussed above. Third stop found about 3 petrified tree stumps on ridge. Petrified wood and conglomerate samples collected.
Astronomy: attempted but due to high winds and clouds was aborted.
Medicine: none." |
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4/9/2007
The Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System (LOCAD-PTS) is an instrument developed by the NAI Carnegie Institution of Washington Team over the past 4 years in collaboration with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Charles River Labs. LOCAD-PTS was flown to and recently tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to enable crew to monitor microorganisms and potentially hazardous chemicals within the cabin environment. The successful test is the first demonstration of complete biochemical analysis - from sampling to data retrieval - by an astronaut in space.
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3/28/2007
Recently produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, "The Virus Hunters" is a fascinating look at viruses, from their role in disease to the possibility of being the oldest form of life on Earth. NAI Virus Focus Group chair Ken Stedman and his team are featured during one of their field trips to Lassen Volcanic National Park. |
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3/26/2007
The American Society for Microbiology recently announced its 2007 General Meeting Award Laureates, and two NAI scientists have received honors. Mitch Sogin, PI of NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory Team, is presented with the USFCC/J. Roger Porter Award for his research in environmental microbial diversity. Norm Pace, from NAI's University of Colorado, Boulder Team, is presented with the Abbott/ASM Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions and research in the field of microbial ecology. Congratulations Norm and Mitch! |
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3/22/2007
Searching for clues to the potential for life on Mars, NASA astrobiologists recently explored microbial communities in China’s northwest region-some of the world’s oldest, driest and most remote deserts. They found evidence suggesting that conditions there may be similar to those in certain regions of Mars. The study was funded in part by NAI's sister program, Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets. |
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3/14/2007
Instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft have found evidence for seas, likely filled with liquid methane or ethane, in the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan. One such feature is larger than any of the Great Lakes of North America and is about the same size as several seas on Earth. |
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3/7/2007
The Deep Phreatic Thermal eXplorer, or DEPTHX, is preparing for another series of dives into a 115-meter deep geothermal sinkhole in Mexico. These dives follow a series of successful tests dives to shakedown the vehicle’s autonomous navigation and mapping capabilities. NAI's sister program, Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP), funds the DEPTHX project as a study to develop technology that could one day allow a waterborne explorer to probe the ocean thought to exist beneath the icy outer shell covering Europa. |
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3/1/2007
NAI graduate student Irene Schneider from Penn State has been selected by NASA/Mars Society as crew physicist for the upcoming expedition 61 for the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS). MDRS Crew 61 is a two week mission simulation where NASA, in collaboration with The Mars Society, simulates future manned missions to Mars. There she will be developing and helping implement the first Extra-Vehicular Activity emergency radiation protocols. |
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2/23/2007
Last week, NAI scientists were featured in a live broadcast of NPR's Science Friday. Tune in to hear how astrobiologists are following the water and the energy, trying to target those parts of the planet most likely to harbor life. Plus, learn how the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have changed our ideas about the Martian environment, and what evidence future missions will look for. |
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1/10/2007
The scientific strategy of NASA's Mars exploration can be summarized as "Follow the water." The habitability of Mars, past or present, is intimately tied to the presence of liquid water. Since the first orbiting spacecraft, Mariner 9, surveyed the planet in the early 1970s, we have known that the Mars polar caps are composed in part of ice, and we have seen large channels cut by water that flowed on the surface billions of years ago. Two of the most important recent discoveries on Mars were "gullies" that indicate much more recent surface flows, less than a million years old, and the evidence from rovers on the surface that shallow ponds or seas of salty water must have once existed, although they may have been transient. However, all these indications of surface water are old - whether the age is measured in millions or billions of years. Now, in what looks to be one of the most important recent discoveries about Mars, we have photographic evidence that flows of liquid water have taken place in the past seven years! The change of perspective from billions or millions of years to something that happened in the twenty-first century could be profound. |
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12/14/2006
Carl Sagan once said “We are all star stuff.” But how? What does that really mean? One of the fundamental questions of astrobiology, how does life originate and evolve?, provides a structure in which to examine the relationship between life and the cosmos. Everywhere life has been found on Earth, which is essentially every place in which it has been sought, life’s intimate connection with water has also been found. Within the framework of contemplating life’s cosmic origins, one must also ask about the history of water on Earth. NASA’s Stardust mission has provided the opportunity for astrobiologists to gain deeper insight into this history. |
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12/6/2006
Follow along as scientists from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team go on expedition with the NSF/NASA - sponsored Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program. View photos, read about the team and their mission, and stay current with regular dispatches from the “Streets of McMurdo.”
The ANSMET program enables researchers to collect meteorites in Antarctica first hand for scientific study. Over 75% of meteorites are recovered from Antarctica, and more than 15,000 samples have been supplied to over 400 scientists in 32 countries over the last 30 years. |
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11/6/2006
Two recent discoveries in astrobiology challenge many of our assumptions about an integrated biological community on Earth. At the microbial level, it seems that there may be previously hidden biospheres that exist on Earth alongside our more familiar neighbors. One such community has been found deeply buried underground, while the other lives in the sea alongside more familiar life forms. |
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11/6/2006
Organic haze in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan, is similar to haze in early Earth's air -- haze that may have helped nourish life on our planet-- according to a NASA Astrobiology Institute study released Nov. 6, 2006. |
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10/31/2006
The Astrobiology Primer: An Outline of General Knowledge appears in this month's issue of Astrobiology. Sponsored by NAI, the Primer was spearheaded by editor-in-chief Lucas Mix, and represents the work of 8 editors, 13 authors, and countless contributors. Intended as a reference tool, it provides information in these 7 topics: Stellar Formation and Evolution, Planetary Formation and Evolution, Astrobiogeochemistry and the Origin of Life, Evolution of Life Through Time, Planet Detection and Characterization, Diversity of Life, and Science in Space. The Primer came about in large part because of NAI support for graduate student research, collaboration, and inclusion as well as direct funding. Download your copy today: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2006.6.735 |
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10/19/2006
Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. Peter Ward from NAI's Alumni Team at the University of Washington asks in this week's Scientific American: "Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again?" |
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9/8/2006
With significant contribution from NAI's Penn State University Team, a new book entitled "Evolution of Early Earth's Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Biosphere - Constraints from Ore Deposits", edited by Stephen E. Kesler and Hiroshi Ohmoto, is available. It grew from a 2002 Pardee Symposium held during the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting sponsored in part by the NAI. |
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8/15/2006
Dr. Carl Pilcher, Senior Scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters, Washington, has been appointed Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) based at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The appointment is effective Sept. 18, 2006.
Pilcher succeeds Dr. Bruce Runnegar, who served as the third director of the NAI from 2003-2006. Runnegar is returning to his home institution, the University of California at Los Angeles in September. |
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7/24/2006
Carnegie Institution planetary-formation theorist and founding NAI member, George Wetherill, died from heart failure on July 19, 2006, at his Washington, D.C., home. Wetherill's work revolutionized planet and solar system formation through theoretical models. |
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7/7/2006
Last month, scientists from NAI's University of Hawai'i Team, in collaboration with Icelandic research institutes, successfully drilled into and sampled a lake deep beneath a glacier in Iceland. The lake and other subglacial lakes are the focus of studies of life in "extreme environments," and may resemble potential habitats on Mars and icy satellites in the outer Solar System |
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6/5/2006
NASA astrobiologists are hard at work examining the nature of the plumes of water vapor recently discovered on Saturn's moon Enceladus. If a new geological theory about the plumes, published in this week's Nature, proves to be correct, it would preclude the existence of a subsurface ocean on the moon. The theory is testable with existing data from NASA's Cassini mission... |
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5/26/2006
NAI scientists and their international partners were featured in a new documentary called "Looking for Life" which premiered this week on both PBS and NASA-TV. The program highlights cutting edge field work in the arid Western Australian desert, an acid river in Spain, high altitude lakes in the Bolivian Andes, and the permafrost within an old gold mine in the Canadian Arctic where astrobiologists are characterizing the unique habitats and survival mechanisms of life on Earth, and laying the groundwork for the search for life on other planets.
For more information about the program, see http://passporttoknowledge.com/life/. Check your local PBS listings and the NASA TV schedule for viewing times. Educational resources supporting the program from NASA Learning Technologies are available at http://www.quest.arc.nasa.gov/vft/. |
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3/15/2006
Scientists are finding surprises from analyzing tiny particles of comet dust collected by the Stardust spacecraft and returned to Earth 8 weeks ago. They had expected mostly "primitive" particles that had condensed under cool conditions in the solar nebula and been preserved in the deep freeze of space. However, some of the comet dust is made of minerals that can only be formed at high temperatures -- either close to the Sun or perhaps in other planetary systems that existed before the solar system formed. NAI scientist Don Browlee reports that "In the coldest part of the solar system, we've found samples that have formed at extremely high temperatures." Henry Bortman filed this story for Astrobiology Magazine from the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. |
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1/24/2006
Direct information concerning the first 500 million years of Earth history - the Hadean Eon - is very limited, since practically no crustal rocks from that time have survived. We do know that the Earth collided much more frequently than it does today with asteroids and comets, as witnessed by the heavily cratered highlands of the Moon. Astronomers also tell us that the Sun was about 30 percent fainter then, so that the Earth may have been cold, unless there was a large greenhouse effect to trap the Sun's heat and raise surface temperatures above the freezing point. Also of special interest is the apparent fact that life arose on Earth either during or shortly after the Hadean Eon. |
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1/10/2006
NASA's Stardust mission is nearing Earth after a four billion kilometer round-trip journey to bring back comet dust samples. Viewers in California, Oregon, and Nevada have a chance to see the fiery entry of the return capsule into Earth's atmosphere in the early morning of Sunday January 15 (approximately 2 a.m. PST, 3 a.m. MST). |
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12/29/2005
Scientists from NAI's NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Lead Team and NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington Lead Team and their collaborators used the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to capture the first light ever detected from two planets orbiting stars other than the sun. Spitzer picked up the infrared glow from the Jupiter-sized planets. The findings mark the beginning of a new age of planetary science, in which extrasolar planets can be directly measured and compared. |
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11/21/2005
Prolific author Peter Ward leads the pack, speculating on "Life As We Do Not Know It..." The book contains a wealth of information and dazzling speculation drawn from the ranks of Ward's colleagues in the 16 research institutions that operate worldwide as NASA's Astrobiology Institute. |
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10/19/2005
Infrared astronomers are discovering that compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) constitute one the largest reservoirs of carbon in space. New observations confirm that PAHs are abundant, even in distant galaxies. Investigator Doug Huggins notes that "This stuff contains the building blocks of life, and now we can say they're abundant in space. And wherever there's a planet out there, we know that these things are going to be raining down on it." |
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10/5/2005
Andrew Steel of the NAI Carnegie Team and other scientists have recently tested life-detection instruments designed for Mars at the Arctic Mars Analog site in a Norwegian volcano. In a press release, Hans Amundsen of the University of Oslo said "The instruments detected both living and fossilized organisms, which is the kind of evidence we'd be searching for on the Red Planet." One instrument, designed by scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), detected "minute quantities of aromatic hydrocarbons from microorganisms and lichens present in the rocks and ice," said JPL researcher Arthur Lonne Lane. One goal of the program was to find out if the instruments could be kept sterile, so that they would actually detect life in the volcano rather than fool researchers by detecting life from aboveground that only appeared to have come from below. |
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9/29/2005
Astrobiology is becoming a part of the curriculum in British universities. An introductory course (with specially written text) has been taught for several years at the Open University, and recently the University of Glamorgan has introduced a major in this subject. |
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9/15/2005
Peter Ward of the University of Washington, the leader of the UW NAI Team, addresses the current attack on teaching evolution by an analogy with teaching students that the Earth is flat. Ward writes that "I teach evolution at the University of Washington. Even at the college level, it is a very difficult and demanding subject, and its abundant proofs require a detailed understanding of genetics, molecular biochemistry and paleontology. But for those who have made the intellectual journey to master these concepts, the stark explanatory power first realized by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago shows clearly how life on this planet evolved from the simple to the complex through natural selection and a lot of time." |
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8/29/2005
The following report is based on a short paper "The Enigma of the Martian Soil" by Amos Banin of the NAI SETI Institute Team, published in Science |
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8/15/2005
NAI astrobiologists are involved in developing a prototype robotic astrobiologist to explore the driest desert on Earth, in preparation for later flights to Mars. This Astrobiology Magazine story is based on a news release from Carnegie Mellon University. |
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8/11/2005
NAI scientists study Yellowstone National park as an analog for thermal areas that probably existed on Mars long ago. This SPACE.com article by Leonard David also tells how visitors to the park are learning about astrobiology. |
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8/5/2005
Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute discusses life living under extreme (to us) conditions, and what this tells us about the search for life beyond Earth. |
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8/1/2005
This news story is based on a JPL/NASA press release dated July 28, 2005, which reports that the Spitzer Space Telescope has found the ingredients for life all the way back to a time when the universe was a mere youngster. |
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7/13/2005
Astronomers have recently discovered what appear to be rocky planets intermediate in size between Earth and Jupiter. We have nothing like this in our own solar system, where there is a sharp distinction between small terrestrial planets and giants like Jupiter and Saturn. Alan Boss of the NAI Carnegie Team discusses the significance of these strange objects. |
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6/10/2005
The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has been orbiting Mars for over a year. While the high resolution images of the planet's many craters, volcanoes, and other features get the most notice, the spacecraft's seven instruments have also gathered large amounts of data about the planet's atmosphere, geology, and chemistry. Bernard Foing, ESA Chief Scientist, provides on overview of the most notable discoveries made during Europe's first trip to the Red Planet. |
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5/12/2005
Understanding microbial communities can give clues to how life shaped the Earth billions of years ago - and help find signs of life on distant planets. |
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4/28/2005
Many attendees felt that astrobiology had come of age. The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) held its fourth biennial meeting at Boulder, Colorado, April 10-14. |
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4/7/2005
Scientists from NAI's Virtual Planetary Laboratory recently visited the exotic lakes of Cuatro Ciengas in Mexico's Chihuahuan desert. What's being studied there may provide clues what life on other, distant worlds may be like, and help scientists understand and interpret the data coming back from extrasolar planets? |
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3/28/2005
Members of the NAI UCLA team led by Ed Young are using high-precision analysis of tiny grains in meteorites to probe the earliest history of the solar nebula. The age of the solar system is set at 4.567 billion years, and the new work traces some of the history of these small grains during about 300,000 years, before the formation of comets, asteroids, or planets. |
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3/23/2005
NAI scientists led one of two teams that have announced the first measurements of light from planets around other stars. The Spitzer Space Telescope detected infrared emissions from these two planets, both of which are "hot Jupiters' -- giant planets orbiting very close to their parent star. This brings a third technique to the study of these planets, which had previously been detected by their gravitational pull on the star and by the dimming of the star as the planet crosses in front of it. As noted by Drake Demming of the Goddard NAI Team, "Spitzer has provided us with a powerful new tool for learning about the temperatures, atmospheres, and orbits of planets hundreds of light-years from Earth." Alan Boss of the NAI Caregie team called this "a major milestone along the way to the ultimate goal of finding Earth-like planets and examining their atmospheres for signs of life." |
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3/15/2005
NAI-supported researchers lead by Deborah S. Kelley of the University of Washington have discovered a new type of marine ecosystem. The Lost City seafloor vents are alkaline rather than acidic, and they produce white chimneys rather than black smokers. Their paper, just published in Science, discusses the unique life found at this locations, such as methane-producing microbes and tiny transparent shrimps and crabs. |
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3/7/2005
Living next to a ringed planet in a flat solar system in a spiral galaxy may make you think there are a lot of disk-shapes in space. And, indeed, there are. A January 2005 issue of the journal Science contains a special section featuring the roles disks play in the universe. |
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3/3/2005
Astrobiology includes the study of ways that astronomical events can influence the evolution of life on Earth. Alex Pavlov of the NAI University of Colorado team reports in two papers how passage of the solar system through dense cool clouds of dust and gas (called molecular clouds by astronomers) could influence the climate, producing extinctions and perhaps triggering the state known as "snowball Earth". Much of this research was performed while Pavlov was a NAI postdoctoral fellow. |
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2/10/2005
The origins of life - the nature of the transition from inanimate to animate chemistry - is one of the major mysteries of astrobiology. The first of the three theme-questions in astrobiology - Where did we come from? - deals in part with origins, whether the process took place on the ancient Earth or elsewhere. One perspective suggests that chemical interactions between water and various minerals might have been important. |
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1/27/2005
On January 14 the Huygens Probe, built by the European Space Agency, made a soft landing on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. The first data from the atmosphere and surface reveal a remarkable place indeed, as described in a science press conference held in Paris on January 21. |
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1/21/2005
At the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods, 252 million years ago, multi-celled life on planet Earth was nearly terminated. This PT mass extinction represents the greatest dying in the fossil record, with more than 90 percent of species lost. New results from South Africa provide the best-ever picture of the PT extinction on land, suggesting that it was a much more complex process than would be expected for a comet or asteroid impact. |
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1/13/2005
On January 14th, four weeks after separation with the Cassini spacecraft, the European Space Agency's Huygens probe will enter Titan's atmosphere. Along its several-hour-long journey to the surface, it will collect, along with other data, the sounds of the atmosphere. |
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1/10/2005
NAI-funded research on cores recovered through the Joint Oceanographic's Ocean Drilling Program show that the activity of microbial life beneath the seafloor is far more diverse than expected. |
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12/14/2004
NASA has selected eight proposals to provide instrumentation and associated science investigations for the mobile Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2009. |
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12/6/2004
Is the methane on Mars coming from deep underground? Astrobiologist Mike Mumma discusses some possibilities while explaining how to measure methane on another world. |
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12/2/2004
The most dramatic findings so far from NASA's twin Mars rovers -- telltale evidence for a wet and possibly habitable environment in the arid planet's past -- passed rigorous scientific scrutiny for publication in a major research journal. |
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11/19/2004
Methane on Earth is generated primarily by living microbes, and this gas is often proposed as a biomarker. Papers presented on November 11 at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Science (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society strengthened the evidence that this gas has been detected in the atmosphere of Mars. |
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11/17/2004
As NASA prepares to investigate the atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan, NASA education experts are helping students investigate the importance of an atmosphere to human life. |
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10/18/2004
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are reporting a possible answer to a longstanding question in research on the origins of life on Earth—how did the first amino acids form the first peptides? |
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9/10/2004
"To detect life on Mars, we have to devise instruments to recognize it and design them in such a way to get them to the Red Planet most efficiently," said Dr. Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, a member of an international team designing devices and techniques to find life on Mars. |
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9/9/2004
A study funded in part by NASA has uprooted the "Tree of Life" metaphor that describes how all organisms are related. |
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9/2/2004
The most recent international astrobiology meeting was held in Iceland July 12-16, 2004. |
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9/1/2004
The following story reporting the discovery of 2 new Uranus/Neptune sized exoplanets adds to the mystery of planetary systems with hot giant planets. |
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8/13/2004
Most people think of time as a straightforward concept, running smoothly and divided into years, days, minutes, etc. For the geologist, paleontologist, or astrobiologist studying the Earth’s history, it is not so simple, however. |
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8/5/2004
Scientific findings from the NASA rover Spirit's first three months on Mars will be published Friday, marking the start of a flood of peer-reviewed discoveries in scientific journals from the continuing two-rover adventure. |
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5/27/2004
NASA has announced new findings from the Spitzer Space Telescope, including icy dust particles coated with water, methanol and carbon dioxide, which may help explain the origin of icy planetoids like comets. |
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5/18/2004
Researchers from the University of Arizona have recreated some of the chemicals thought to be in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. |
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5/17/2004
New evidence suggests a possible impact cause for the greatest mass extinction of all time, although many scientists remain skeptical that this long-standing mystery has been solved. A NASA news conference was held May 13 to announce the discovery of an impact crater near Australia that might be implicated in the Permian-Triassic or PT extinction event, 251 million years ago. |
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4/7/2004
Is the methane discovered on Mars evidence for contemporary life on the Red Planet? |
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3/26/2004
Yellowstone Park Foundation receives $66,000 grant from NASA and Lockheed Martin Corporation to help tell the story. |
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3/23/2004
If Mars ever supported life, it must have had liquid water, something that is now precluded on the surface by sub-freezing temperatures and a low atmospheric pressure. One of the main objectives of the current Mars Exploration Rovers is to find evidence on the surface of what might have been a warmer, wetter planet in the past. |
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3/22/2004
Without oxygen, animal life on Earth would not be possible. But Earth's atmosphere wasn't always rich in oxygen. |
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3/8/2004
New measurements by University of Rochester geochemists have uncovered evidence that even after 2.2 billion years ago, the amount of oxygen in the oceans remained low, perhaps up to the time when multicelled life began to proliferate a few hundred million years ago. |
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3/2/2004
Scientists have concluded the part of Mars that NASA's Opportunity rover is exploring was soaking wet in the past. |
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2/29/2004
Space radiation between Earth and Mars poses a hazard to astronauts. How dangerous is it out there? NASA scientists are working to find out. |
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2/4/2004
The Mars rover Opportunity, which rolled off its landing platform onto the Martian surface early on Saturday, has returned its first real science data to Earth. |
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1/25/2004
NASA's Opportunity rover returned the first pictures of its landing site early today, revealing a surreal, dark landscape unlike any ever seen before on Mars. |
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1/5/2004
A traveling robotic geologist from NASA has landed on Mars
and returned stunning images of the area around its landing site in
Gusev Crater. |
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12/10/2003
Scientists are proud when they discover a new species or genus of life, but one molecular biologist, Carl Woese, has the unique honor or discovering an entire domain of life, the archaea. |
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11/17/2003
The NAI Looks at some exciting science initiatives. |
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11/14/2003
Newly seen details in a fan-shaped apron of debris on Mars may help settle a decades-long debate about whether the planet had long-lasting rivers instead of just brief, intense floods. |
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10/30/2003
Just as anthropologists sought "the missing link" between apes and humans, astronomers are embarking on a quest for a missing link in planetary evolution. |
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10/23/2003
Scientists from NASA, the SETI Institute and other institutions will study microscopic life forms in some of the highest lakes on Earth atop a South American volcano to learn what life may have been like on early Mars. |
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9/23/2003
To develop techniques to drill into the surface of Mars to look for signs of life, NASA and Spanish scientists recently began drilling 150 meters (495 feet) into the ground near the source of the waters of the Rio Tinto, a river in southwestern Spain, part of a three-year effort that will include the search for underground life forms. |
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8/25/2003
In the early morning of August 25th at 1:35:39 a.m. EDT, NASA successfully launched the new Space Infrared Telescope Facility aboard a Boeing Delta II Heavy Launch Vehicle into the first-ever Earth-trailing orbit. |
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8/11/2003
Water released from Lake Vostok, deep beneath the south polar ice sheet, could gush like a popped can of soda if not contained, opening the lake to possible contamination and posing a potential health hazard to NASA and university researchers.
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8/5/2003
NASA has selected Phoenix, an innovative and relatively low-cost mission, to study the red planet, as the first Mars Scout mission. The Phoenix lander mission is scheduled for launch in 2007.
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7/30/2003
Understanding the history of oxygen accumulation in Earth's atmosphere is an important topic in astrobiology. It has ramifications in the evolution of planetary habitability as well as using oxygen as a biomarker in the search for life on extrasolar planets. |
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7/13/2003
Some 13 billion years ago in a distant cluster of stars, a planet formed. Remarkably it's still there, according to data from the Hubble Space Telescope. |
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7/9/2003
NASA launched its second Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, late
Monday night (July 7) aboard a Delta II launch vehicle whose bright glare
briefly illuminated Florida Space Coast beaches. |
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