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20 Years Building Astrobiology
ASTROBIOLOGY Volume 20, Number 9, 2020 Special Collection Articles Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2020.0804 Introduction—Centro de Astrobiologı´a: 20 Years Building Astrobiology Vı´ctor Parro,1 J. Miguel Mas-Hesse,1 Javier Gomez-Elvira,1,2 A´ lvaro Gime´nez,1 and Juan Pe´rez-Mercader3 The Origins example of life, and we do not know how it was generated. It would require a team of scientists with a truly scientific he Centro de AstroBiologı´a (CAB) was founded in and professional knowledge and understanding of the TNovember 1999 as a joint institute between the Spanish various components of the puzzle. National Research Council (CSIC) and the National Institute That team began to emerge in Madrid, with scientists for Aerospace Technologies (INTA). Located in Madrid working in galactic astrophysics, planetary science, evolu- (Spain), CAB became the first astrobiology organization outside tion of life and of viruses, origins-of-life chemistry, meta- the United States to be associated with the NASA Astrobiology bolic processes in biochemistry, evolution of planets, Institute (NAI)—formally becoming an associate member in bioinformatics, extremophiles, and physics, together with the year 2000. Astrobiology considers life as a natural conse- engineers to design and produce instrumentation. This group, quence of the evolution of the Universe, and CAB aims to study from a variety of universities and government research cen- the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the ters, such as INTA (Instituto Nacional de Te´cnica Aero- Universe, from an integrative transdisciplinary approach. espacial) and CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CAB’s foundation was the result of a profound interest Cientı´ficas), started informal discussions; and a passion for in applying the scientific method to life—in the sense of the subject of astrobiology began to burn. -
The Mystery of Methane on Mars and Titan
The Mystery of Methane on Mars & Titan By Sushil K. Atreya MARS has long been thought of as a possible abode of life. The discovery of methane in its atmosphere has rekindled those visions. The visible face of Mars looks nearly static, apart from a few wispy clouds (white). But the methane hints at a beehive of biological or geochemical activity underground. Of all the planets in the solar system other than Earth, own way, revealing either that we are not alone in the universe Mars has arguably the greatest potential for life, either extinct or that both Mars and Titan harbor large underground bodies or extant. It resembles Earth in so many ways: its formation of water together with unexpected levels of geochemical activ- process, its early climate history, its reservoirs of water, its vol- ity. Understanding the origin and fate of methane on these bod- canoes and other geologic processes. Microorganisms would fit ies will provide crucial clues to the processes that shape the right in. Another planetary body, Saturn’s largest moon Titan, formation, evolution and habitability of terrestrial worlds in also routinely comes up in discussions of extraterrestrial biology. this solar system and possibly in others. In its primordial past, Titan possessed conditions conducive to Methane (CH4) is abundant on the giant planets—Jupiter, the formation of molecular precursors of life, and some scientists Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—where it was the product of chem- believe it may have been alive then and might even be alive now. ical processing of primordial solar nebula material. On Earth, To add intrigue to these possibilities, astronomers studying though, methane is special. -
Environmental Philosophy and the Ethics of Terraforming Mars
ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE ETHICS OF TERRAFORMING MARS: ADDING THE VOICES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND ECOFEMINISM TO THE ONGOING DEBATE Robert Heath French Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2013 APPROVED: Robert Figueroa, Committee Chair Eugene Hargrove, Committee Member Adam Briggle, Committee Member Patricia Glazebrook, Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School French, Robert Heath. Environmental Philosophy and the Ethics of Terraforming Mars: Adding the Voices of Environmental Justice and Ecofeminism to the Ongoing Debate. Master of Arts (Philosophy), August 2013, 133 pp., 1 table, bibliography, 78 titles. Questions concerning the ethics of terraforming Mars have received some attention from both philosophers and scientists during recent decades. A variety of theoretical approaches have been supplied by a number of authors, however research pursuant to this thesis has indicated at least two major blindspots in the published literature on the topic. First, a broad category of human considerations involving risks, dangers, and social, political, and economic inequalities that would likely be associated with efforts to terraform Mars have been woefully overlooked in the published literature to date. I attempt to rectify that oversight by employing the interpretive lens of environmental justice to address questions of environmental colonialism, equality in terms of political participation and inclusion in decision making structures, risks associated with technological progressivism, and responses to anthropogenic climate change. Only by including the historically marginalized and politically disenfranchised “voices,” of both humans and nonhumans, can any future plan to terraform Mars be deemed ethical, moral or just according to the framework provided by environmental justice. -
TIME Space Newsletter September 10, 2019
TIME Space Newsletter September 10, 2019 Dear readers, Not a lot of people would want to go back to the Paleocene Epoch. For one thing, the dinosaurs were only beginning to die out, and while they'd be nifty to see, they were murder on mammals. It would be a good 65 million years before humans got a literal toe-hold on the world. The Eocene wouldn't be much better. It was around that time that what is now the Indian subcontinent crashed into Asia, and while all that produced some lovely mountains, there was a lot of slo-mo violence of clashing plates before things settled down. As far as epochs go, the Holocene is everyone's favorite. It started close to 12,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age was ending, and produced the conditions that allowed all the species we love best—ourselves, and charismatic megafauna like the bald eagle, the panda and the tiger—to thrive. From humanity's perspective, it would be perfectly fine if the Holocene went on forever. But it won't. It's ending now—it may have already ended in the 1950s, according to some scientists—to be replaced by the Anthropocene. The name says it all: it's an epoch in which one species—ours, anthro—became the leading driver of the state of the planet, more powerful, at least in the short-term, than the larger forces of geology, meteorology, even biology. We have, of course, abused that power, fouling the air, annihilating species, wiping out forests and distorting the climate. -
Space Biology Research and Biosensor Technologies: Past, Present, and Future †
biosensors Perspective Space Biology Research and Biosensor Technologies: Past, Present, and Future † Ada Kanapskyte 1,2, Elizabeth M. Hawkins 1,3,4, Lauren C. Liddell 5,6, Shilpa R. Bhardwaj 5,7, Diana Gentry 5 and Sergio R. Santa Maria 5,8,* 1 Space Life Sciences Training Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; [email protected] (A.K.); [email protected] (E.M.H.) 2 Biomedical Engineering Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA 3 KBR Wyle, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA 4 Mammoth Biosciences, Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA 5 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; [email protected] (L.C.L.); [email protected] (S.R.B.); [email protected] (D.G.) 6 Logyx, LLC, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA 7 The Bionetics Corporation, Yorktown, VA 23693, USA 8 COSMIAC Research Institute, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-650-604-1411 † Presented at the 1st International Electronic Conference on Biosensors, 2–17 November 2020; Available online: https://iecb2020.sciforum.net/. Abstract: In light of future missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) and the potential establishment of bases on the Moon and Mars, the effects of the deep space environment on biology need to be examined in order to develop protective countermeasures. Although many biological experiments have been performed in space since the 1960s, most have occurred in LEO and for only short periods of time. These LEO missions have studied many biological phenomena in a variety of model organisms, and have utilized a broad range of technologies. -
Uncorrected Proof
Planetary and Space Science xxx (xxxx) xxx-xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Planetary and Space Science journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com Joint Europa Mission (JEM) a multi-scale study of Europa to characterize its habitability and search for extant life Michel Blanc a,∗, Nicolas André a, Olga Prieto-Ballesteros b, Javier Gomez-Elvira b, Geraint Jones c, Veerle Sterken d,e, William Desprats a,f, Leonid I. Gurvits g,p,ak, Krishan Khurana h, Aljona Blöcker i, Renaud Broquet j, Emma Bunce k, Cyril Cavel j, Gaël Choblet l, Geoffrey Colins m, Marcello Coradini n, John Cooper o, Dominic Dirkx p, Philippe Garnier a, David Gaudin f, Paul Hartogh q, Luciano Iess r, Adrian Jäggi d, Sascha Kempf s, Norbert Krupp q, Luisa Lara t, Jérémie LasuePROOFa, Valéry Lainey u, François Leblanc v, Jean-Pierre Lebreton w, Andrea Longobardo x, Ralph Lorenz y, Philippe Martins z, Zita Martins aa, Adam Masters ab,al, David Mimoun f, Ernesto Palumba x, Pascal Regnier j, Joachim Saur ac, Adriaan Schutte ad, Edward C. Sittler o, Tilman Spohn ae, Katrin Stephan ae, Károly Szegő af, Federico Tosi x, Steve Vance ag, Roland Wagner ae, Tim Van Hoolst ah, Martin Volwerk ai, Frances Westall aj a IRAP, France b INTA-CAB, Spain c MSSL/UCL, UK d University of Bern, Switzerland e ETH Zürich, Switzerland f ISAE, France g Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC, Dwingeloo, the Netherlands h UCLA, USA i Royal Institute of Technology KTH, Sweden j Airbus D&S, France k Univ. Leicester, UK l LPG, Univ. Nantes, France mWheaton College, USA n CSEO, USA o GSFC, USA p TU Delft, the Netherlands q MPS, Germany r Univ. -
The Search for Extreme Life
BIOCHEMIST_BARUCH S. BLUMBERG The Search for Extreme Life ofile If microorganisms exist on other worlds, the head of NASA’s fledgling Astrobiology Institute plans to find them he relentless heat cooks the the space agency aims to someday find “Technology is available to decipher Pr Badwater region of California’s on other worlds. the intricacies of this cause-and-effect Death Valley so thoroughly that “I always liked the idea of doing field- chain” that wasn’t available even five some expanses are textured like work, exploring, going out and finding years ago, Blumberg notes, citing in par- Tdry serpent skin. At some 284 feet below new things,” Blumberg says back at NAI ticular advances achieved through the sea level—North America’s lowest point— headquarters, which is nestled near Sili- Human Genome Project. The 1996 an- it is perhaps the hottest place on the sur- con Valley at the NASA Ames Research nouncement of potential fossilized life in face of the earth: the temperature once Center at Moffett Field. Out of his desert a Martian meteorite known as ALH84001 peaked at a record 53.01 degrees Celsius garb, the outdoors-loving Blumberg looks boosted enthusiasm worldwide. Even (127.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Out here, a good decade younger than his 75 years. Congress, which had quashed NASA’s blood-pumping mammals are scarce. It At the job only since last September, Blum- search for extraterrestrial intelligence may seem unfitting to find a Nobel Prize berg is trying to marshal gaggles of as- (SETI) program in 1993, became recep- winner, renowned for hepatitis B work, tronomers, chemists, ecologists, geologists, tive. -
Strategies for Detecting Biological Molecules on Titan
ASTROBIOLOGY Volume 18, Number 5, 2018 ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2017.1758 Strategies for Detecting Biological Molecules on Titan Catherine D. Neish,1 Ralph D. Lorenz,2 Elizabeth P. Turtle,2 Jason W. Barnes,3 Melissa G. Trainer,4 Bryan Stiles,5 Randolph Kirk,6 Charles A. Hibbitts,2 and Michael J. Malaska5 Abstract Saturn’s moon Titan has all the ingredients needed to produce ‘‘life as we know it.’’ When exposed to liquid water, organic molecules analogous to those found on Titan produce a range of biomolecules such as amino acids. Titan thus provides a natural laboratory for studying the products of prebiotic chemistry. In this work, we examine the ideal locales to search for evidence of, or progression toward, life on Titan. We determine that the best sites to identify biological molecules are deposits of impact melt on the floors of large, fresh impact craters, specifically Sinlap, Selk, and Menrva craters. We find that it is not possible to identify biomolecules on Titan through remote sensing, but rather through in situ measurements capable of identifying a wide range of biological molecules. Given the nonuniformity of impact melt exposures on the floor of a weathered impact crater, the ideal lander would be capable of precision targeting. This would allow it to identify the locations of fresh impact melt deposits, and/or sites where the melt deposits have been exposed through erosion or mass wasting. Determining the extent of prebiotic chemistry within these melt deposits would help us to understand how life could originate on a world very different from Earth. -
Planetary Protection Issues in the Human Exploration of Mars Final Report May 9, 2005
NASA/CP—2005-213461 Planetary Protection Issues in the Human Exploration of Mars Final Report May 9, 2005 Editors: M. E. Criswell M. S. Race J. D. Rummel A. Baker Report of a Workshop held June 20-23, 2001 at Pingree Park Mountain Campus Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Workshop sponsored by NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 June 2005 The NASA STI Program Office . in Profile Since its founding, NASA has been dedicated to the • CONFERENCE PUBLICATION. Collected advancement of aeronautics and space science. The papers from scientific and technical confer- NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) ences, symposia, seminars, or other meetings Program Office plays a key part in helping NASA sponsored or cosponsored by NASA. maintain this important role. • SPECIAL PUBLICATION. Scientific, technical, The NASA STI Program Office is operated by or historical information from NASA programs, Langley Research Center, the Lead Center for projects, and missions, often concerned with NASA’s scientific and technical information. The subjects having substantial public interest. NASA STI Program Office provides access to the NASA STI Database, the largest collection of • TECHNICAL TRANSLATION. English- aeronautical and space science STI in the world. language translations of foreign scientific and The Program Office is also NASA’s institutional technical material pertinent to NASA’s mission. mechanism for disseminating the results of its research and development activities. These results Specialized services that complement the STI are published by NASA in the NASA STI Report Program Office’s diverse offerings include creating Series, which includes the following report types: custom thesauri, building customized databases, organizing and publishing research results . -
Figure 1 (Left) SOLID Instrument Block Diagram Showing 3 Main Modules. Power Is Provided by ICU, Which Collects Internal Senso
Eighth International Conference on Mars (2014) 1069.pdf THE SIGNS OF LIFE DETECTOR (SOLID): AN INSTRUMENT TO DETECT MOLECULAR BIOSIGNATURES ON MARS. V. Parro1, C. Stoker2, A.F. Davila3, R. Quinn4., Javier Gomez-Elvira1 1Centro de Astrobiología ([email protected]), 2NASA Ames Research Center ([email protected]), 3Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institiute ([email protected]), 4Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institiute ([email protected]). Introduction: The case for life on Mars grows fluorescence images with the results of the immunoas- stronger. Investigations at Gale Crater by Curiosity say. have revealed fine-grained sedimentary rocks inferred Conceptually, immunoassays mimic our immune to represent an ancient lake environment suited to sup- system in that a fleet of antibodies (Ab) is designed to port life [1]. In addition, Curiosity tentatively found a chemically capture desired organic compounds termed heterogeneous distribution of organic carbon within antigens (Ag) in solution. Antibodies possess high these sediments [2], consistent with the detection of specificity and affinity for their respective Ag, making native organic C in Mars meteorites. Futhermore, immunoassays both reliable and sensitive, with con- modern potentially habitable environments have been firmed detection limits of a few ppb for specific com- recognized on Mars including the N. Polar region vis- pounds. For analysis, the liquid extract obtained in the ited by Phoenix [3], gully featuers suggesting modern SPU is exposed to a fleet of Ab’s designed to anchor to water flows [4], and RSLs that occur seasonally sug- a specific region of the target organic compound. Spe- gest liquid processes[5]. -
Planetary & Solar System Sciences
EGU General Assembly 2012 EGU General Assembly 2012 Programme Group Programme PS – Planetary & Solar System Sciences Monday, 23 April ........................................................................................................................................................................ 2 PS1.1 ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 2 PS2.2 ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 2 GD1.1/PS2.7 .............................................................................................................................................................................. 3 PS3.3 ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 4 PS5.3/ST6.4 ............................................................................................................................................................................... 4 ST2.4/PS5.4 ............................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Tuesday, 24 April ...................................................................................................................................................................... -
Presentación De Powerpoint
Center for Astrobiology The origin of life and the evolution of the Universe CAB: Center for Astrobiology Understanding the origin and evolution of life along the history of the Universe • How, where and when did life emerge? • How did it evolve towards intelligence and consciousness? • What is the future of life on Earth and beyond? 10 billion ~13 years billion years 92% Hydrogen Formation of elements Emergence of life Complex life and first exoplanets Intelligence CAB: Center for Astrobiology Transdisciplinary approach − Astrophysics − Geology/Planetology − Biology/Biochemistry − Planetary exploration − Simulation chambers − Engineering 3 CAB: Center for Astrobiology • Founded in 1999 as a joint institute INTA + CSIC – Close collaboration with the INTA technical laboratories, specially for the development of space missions. – Multidisciplinary scientists formed within CSIC. • Since 2000 associated to the NASA Astrobiology Institute 4 Departments and groups • Astrophysics: – Formation and evolution of galaxies – Interstellar and circumstellar medium – Formation and evolution of stars, brown dwarfs and planets – Virtual Observatory and astronomical archives • Planetology and habitability: – Planetary geology and atmospheres – Habitability – Extremophiles and extreme environments 5 Departments and groups • Molecular evolution: – Biomolecules in planetary exploration – Molecular evolution and genomics – Prebiotic chemistry – Molecular mechanisms of the biological adaptation • Instrumentation: – Space instrumentation – Simulation chambers 6 Simulation chambers • Mars environment simulation chamber • High pressure planetary chambers • Planetary atmosphere and surface chamber • Interstellar astrochemistry chamber • Cryogenic vacuum chamber for detector testing • Projectile impact facility 8 Space missions • Astrophysics (in development) − PLATO (M3 ESA): exoplanets characterization − X-IFU/Athena (L2 ESA): X-rays − Safari/SPICA (ESA-JAXA): Far Infrared 9 Space missions • Planetary exploration − REMS (NASA MSL Curiosity): In operation since August 2012.