Astrobiology and the Search for ET-Life in the Solar System Kathleen A. Campbell
Astrobiology and the Search for ET-Life in the Solar System
Kathleen A. Campbell
¤ Conditions necessary for life to emerge and flourish¤ The origin of life¤ Life’s evolution and adaptation to range of environmental conditions ¤ The search for life beyond Earth¤ Habitability of extraterrestrial environments¤ Considering the future of life on Earth and elsewhere
Tools of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, planetary science,microbiology, atmospheric science, etc.
What is Astrobiology?The Astrobiology Primer v2.0 – 2016
The science that seeks to understand the story of life in our universe … holistically, beyond discovery, into fundamental questions
Asking Some Big Questions: How did Life Originate?
What was Early Life on Earth Like?
Sources: Smithsonian Institution;
mun.ca/biology/ dmarshall
Microbial - Bitter Springs site, Australia, 900 million years old
Asking Some Big Questions: Was or is there life on other planets?
Where would you look for it?What might it look like?
Martians on Mars?
ET Life in the Solar System?• Microbial• On Earth, it is everywhere, even in the most extreme environments – cold, hot, acid, alkaline, salty, deep subsurface –analogues for possible life elsewhere?
Purple sulphur bacteria eat carbon dioxide and hydrogen; give off methane gas bubbles in a super salty pond – strange life!
Credit: National Geographic
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Some Present Day ‘Early Earth-Analogue’ Extreme Environments: Microbial Life
Hydrothermal Vents, Antarctic Dry Valleys, Very Salty Lagoons, Deep-Rock Subsurface, Hydrocarbon Seeps, High Dry Deserts, Sub-
Glacial Lakes and Oceans, Terrestrial Hot Springs
Credit: National Geographic
The Temperature Extremes of Life… allow us to imagine conditions of early (microbial) life on Earth and possibly also elsewhere in Universe ...
121ºC – so far
Credit: Nature
Where to look for life in our Solar System?Europa, a moon of Jupiter – ice tectonics, subsurface ocean with methane – microbes living in it?
Credits: jpl.nasa.gov, planetary.org
Credits: oneworldoneocean, livescience, Daniel Dichek
Antarctic subglacial lakes and under marine ice shelves: Extreme
environment analogues for icy worlds
Where to look for life in our Solar System?
- Ice and silica plumes- Hydrothermal vents?
EnceladusNASA
Credit: Lunar Planetary Institute
ET life on Mars? Evidence for ancientvolcanism and running water
Hosts the Solar System’s largest volcano, largest canyon carved by water … active around same time as life originated on Earth…. Mars too?
Mars on the ground – evidence for liquid water
Credits: NASA, Hoehler, 2007
How did life take hold on Earth, > 3 Ga?• Terrestrial organic soup model• Terrestrial marine hydrothermal vent model• Extraterrestrial seeding by meteorites, comets
Credits: daviddarling.info, Wicander & Monroe 2004
Deep roots (most primitive living organisms) of Tree of
Life are heat-loving microbes– remnant of early
bombardment?
?
Aquifex pyrophilus in Yellowstone hot spring
Credits: Science, MicrobeWiki
Biofilms –hydrothermal shallow marine sediments, Barberton, South Africa (3.4-3.2 Ga)
Filamentous microfossils –3.25 billion year old hydrothermal vent deposit, Pilbara, Western Australia
Some early life habitats were HYDROTHERMAL
Rasmussen 2000; Westall et al. 2001
Early life and Hot Water on Land: 3.48 Ga, W Australia
Djovic et al., in prep; Drake et al., 2014
9kyrs, Mangatete sinter, New Zealand
Hot Water Creek, Waimangu, NZ
Drilling beneath weathering –biogeochemical cycles of early microbes
Early life and Hot Water
on Land: 3.48 Ga, W
Australia
Djovic et al., 2017; M Van Kranendonk
Vent geyser
Subrecentgeyserite
3.48 Ga geyserite
Credit: J. Krissansen-Totton
Alien-life hunters: keep an open mind when scanning the atmospheres of exoplanets – Early Earth’s was anoxic
No carbon monoxide
Home Plate, Columbia Hills opaline silica deposit
Nature Communications 2016
Ruff & Farmer, 2016
Ruff & Farmer, 2016
Columbia Hills, Mars (NASA, S
Ruff)
Tikitere (Hell’s Gate)
geothermal area
Whangapaoa spring
Rotorua Hot Springs on Mars?
Johnson et al. in prep – Georgetown, Caltech, JPL
Targeting hydrothermal biosignatures from orbit – NASA PSTAR
Guido et al., 2010; Guido and Campbell, 2014; Campbell et al., 2015
CTiO2
Jurassic hot springs, Argentina
Credit: AmericaSpace
NASA’s 3rd Landing Site Selection Meeting,
February 2017, Monrovia, California – Columbia Hills
team
X X X X X
NASA Mars 2020’s mission:
Explore a site likely to have been habitable, and seek evidence of past life
Cache samples for future return to Earth
NE Syrtis Major – impact basin, shield volcano; hydrated minerals
Jezero – delta in lake; carbonates, clays
Credit: NASA
EDc/sc/s
20
20
30
304.09 Å4.09 Å opal-CTopal-CT/-A
°2θ
°2θ
SPHERESPATHWAY I SMOOTHPATHWAY II
Cc/s 20 30opal-A /-CT°2θ4.09 ÅBc/s 20 30opal-A°2θ4.09 Å
XRPD TRACESAc/s 20 30opal-A°2θ4.0 Å
1µm2µm2µm2µm
5µm
Credit: Lunar & Planetary Sci Inst
Sample return mission toMars - next decade?
Human mission to Mars – 2030s-2050s
Te Ao Mārama Centre for Fundamental Inquiry
Alex Conu
Foundational cosmology
Astrobiology
Mātauranga Māori
Core research areas
Abiogenesis
Mind and cognition
GNS Science
Some big questions
• What if there were other universes with differentfundamental laws of physics?
• How did life arise? Moreover, what is life?• What is the past, present and future of life in the
Universe? • How can constructing synthetic life in the lab
provide clues to possible life elsewhere?• What is mind? What is consciousness?• What is ultimate reality?
GNS Science
What next? Centre is a work in progress New website:
http://www.teaomarama.auckland.ac.nz
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Acknowledgments:Te Ao Mārama
Research Centre, Royal Soc NZ Marsden Fund, Univ Auckland Faculty
Development Research Fund & School of
Environment, The National Geographic
Society, LE STUDIUM®, M Van
Kranendonk, D Guido, F Westall, T Djovic, PRL
Browne, S Ruff, JD Farmer, B Drake, A Hamilton, Haritina
Mogoşanu (NZ Astrobiology
Network), Nick Rattenbury