Snowing Microbes

Of all the places in our solar system (besides Earth) that are most likely to harbor life, none is better than Enceladus, Sat­urn’s sixth largest moon. Although extremely cold, it has been recording spouting geyser-like plumes of liquid water high into the air. Enceladus is one of only a few other places in our solar system with recorded geologic activity.

Although it is so very cold on Enceladus, that does not have researchers worried, because we have life here in our arctic oceans on Earth.

The lucky thing about the water being sprayed into the air also means that the probes that have been sent to Enceladus do not even need to land! All they have to do is fly through the spray to gather their samples and analyze the liquid. With the envi­ronment being so cold, however, all of the spray is probably being frozen into snow in the atmosphere. 
There are also concerns that perhaps the oceans are far too acidic to support life, but again, it may be possible for mi­crobes to survive in such conditions.

Microbes, are, in fact, what the researchers are looking for; millions of microscopic bacteria and other organisms that live just about everywhere here on Earth. As the water is likely being spurted from the oceans beneath the frozen surface of the planet, any life held within them would be blown up into the atmosphere in the geysers.

Read more from SPACE.com.

Life on Europa: a soda ocean? 03.02.12

Of all of the other places in our solar system, one of the most promising locations for extraterrestrial life has been Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Completely covered with ice on the surface, researchers believe Europa harbors an ocean of liquid water at least 100 miles deep, which leads down to a rocky interior and a solid core of some type, most likely metal. Surface studies on the moon have yet to be conducted, however, so the re­searchers have no idea how thick the icy crust on the outside of the planet may be.

Credit: NASA.

While the possibility of an ocean of liquid water is more than enough to be excited about, some researchers are beginning to doubt whether or not life as we know it would be able to thrive on the chilling planet. What research has been done on the planet is beginning to lead the scientists to believe that whatever water is there would be highly contaminated by extremely acidic chemicals. There is some speculation that it is possible the acidity could be balanced out by more basal minerals at the ocean floor, but again, it is all speculation.

There are a few places on Earth where some microbes and other life forms thrive in highly acidic environments, but those areas are few and far between. So, the likelihood of life sur­viving on an entire planet like that? Very slim.

Without the bases and minerals at the ocean floor to balance out the pH, though, the researchers say the ocean would have moderately corrosive characteristics, “about the same as your average soft drink,” except it would be more along the lines of hydrogen peroxide than a cola. Swim time, anyone?

Information credit: SPACE.com.

Meet O/OREOS, NASA's first nanosatellite, 03.09.11

NASA has put a loaf of bread in orbit around earth. Wait, no. Scratch that; they have put a satellite the size of a loaf of bread in orbit. Let us introduce you to NASA’s newest baby: a nanosatellite, O/OREOS. Isn’t it cute?

Image credit: NASA/Dominic Hart.

Weighing in at around 12 pounds and orbiting at approximately 400 miles above earth, O/OREOS (Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses) is the first successful nanosatellite to reach orbit. What’s more, it is the first propellant-less mechanism NASA has used to conduct experiments. It went up in a USAF Minotaur IV rocket as part of the 4-stage payload, and was set in orbit on November 19 of last year. When it is finished with all of its experiments (in about, oh…25 years or so) it will just burn up in Earth’s atmosphere as it falls back towards land. It just drifts round and round the Earth’s orbit, from the Arctic all the way to the Antarctic Circle. It launched from the Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, too, so it’s got a good start on that north-south downward spiral.


This little loaf of bread—sorry, satellite—is special, too, because it is the first successful attempt by NASA to have two completely independent experiments running simultaneously in the same instrument. What sort of experiments, you ask? Biological and chemical ones. This nifty little satellite’s purpose, according to NASA, is “to answer astrobiology’s fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe.” Big goals for such a tiny little tool.


What’s more, Santa Clara University has invited the public to help them collect data from O/OREOS. If you are an experienced operator with a HAM radio, you can visit this link, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/ooreos/main, and get all the information you need to tune in to O/OREOS’ data stream.


Credit: NASA.

Astrobiologists find alternate chemistry for life...on Earth, 12.02.10

Astrobiologists participating in a NASA funded study at Mono Lake in California have discovered that a strain of bacteria is capable of not only thriving on, but actually altering its genetic makeup to include arsenic. Arsenic is an element that is extremely poisonous to most forms of life on Earth, and chemically behaves in a similar manner to phosphorous, a crucial element to all cells’ “energy-carrying molecule,” and also in creating cell membranes. Arsenic, on the other hand, tends to disrupt metabolic pathways.


“The definition of life has just expanded,” said NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Ed Weiler. According to Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence in California, scientists were previously aware of some microbes that could breathe arsenic. Substituting arsenic into its genetic makeup, however, is something completely new and changes everything scientists thought they knew about DNA.


The star of the show is strain GFAJ-1, from the common family of bacteria Gammaproteobacteria. The bacteria was collected from mud samples in the lake and cultivated in laboratory tests. First the bacteria were fed using a mixture of elements that was low on phosphorous and high in arsenic. The mixture was changed to completely leave out the phosphorous and substitute even higher levels of arsenic, and the scientists discovered the bacteria actually began incorporating the arsenic into its DNA in place of the phosphorous. NASA said the results of the study were published in this week’s edition of Science Express.


The image on the left is of the GFAJ-1 grown first in the phosphorous mixture. The second image is of the bacteria once arsenic had been completely substituted into the slurry. Thronateeska Museum Guide and staff astronomer Jim Friese says “this expansion of the definition of life goes hand in hand with all the different and strange worlds we are finding out there [in space].” Scientists are now realizing that different chemistry really does not automatically mean there is no life there.

Image credit: NASA.

Image credit: NASA.

Credit: NASA.