NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

Welcome to the NAI Newsletter! The Newsletter is a compendium of announcements, events, updates, and news items related to the NAI and its research. If you have news items or suggestions you can send them to the editor, Marco Boldt at: Marco.Boldt@nasa.gov.

NAI News

Goddard Center for Astrobiology Summer Student Presentations

Please join us as this year's students present the results of their summer's research in a virtual seminar.

The 2009 Summer Undergraduate Internship in Astrobiology is a ten-week internship in astrobiology held each year at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Date/Time: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 11am Pacific

Presenters:

Joseph Angelo – Drexel University – “Investigating the Autocatalytic Mechanisms Producing Homochirality”

William Herlands - Princeton University - “Empirical Model for Methanol in Comets”

Nadya Radeva – Connecticut College – “Mapping the D/H of water on Mars: Searching for Active Vents”

Renuka Ramanathan – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – “Laser Desorption ToF-MS for In Situ Analysis of Organics”

Karen Whelley – Penn State University – “Derivatization of Dicarboxylic and Hydroxy Acids with IPA/TFAA”

Keara Wright – University of Missouri – “H2O in Comet C/2001 LINEAR A2 and C/2007 W1 Boattini”

For more information and participation instructions:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/seminars/detail/157

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Josep Comas i Solà International Astrobiology Summer School

The Josep Comas i Solà International Astrobiology Summer School, held annually in Santander, Spain, has become a tradition in the astrobiology community, as this summer marked its seventh year. The week-long program for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows provides lectures from international experts, round-table discussions, student projects, night-sky observations, and a half-day field trip to a nearby site of astrobiological interest.

This summer’s program, held from 22-26 June, was devoted to an understanding of the characteristics and diversity of organisms that inhabit Earth’s extreme environments and the implications for the habitability of environments beyond Earth. About 40 students participated, most from the US and Europe, but including one each from Canada and Mexico. The Directors of both NAI and Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) organize the school, together with former NAI Director Bruce Runnegar at UCLA. This year’s lecturers included noted oceanographer and astrobiologist John Baross of the University of Washington; Michael Madigan of Southern Illinois University, principal author of Brock Biology of Microorganisms,and one of the world’s leading experts on anoxygenic photosynthesis; Ricardo Amils of CAB, chemist and microbiologist specializing in the ecology of highly acidic environments such as Spain’s Rio Tinto, an analogue to Mars; Felipe Gómez of CAB, whose research focuses on life in permafrost; and Petra Rettberg, radiation biologist from the German Aerospace Center.

This year’s field trips included examination of fossil-rich cretaceous sedimentary formations on the Magdalena peninsula in Santander and a hike deep into the carbonate-dominated El Soplao cave in the Sierra de Arnero Mountains, known for the abundance, quality, and preservation of its mineral formations.

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Recently Published Research from the NAI

Marine Methane Oxidation Without Sulfur

A new study in Science from NAI’s Penn State Team shows that the anaerobic oxidation of methane is not solely a sulfate-dependent process. Microbes cultured from marine methane seeps in California’s Eel River Basin have demonstrated capability of using manganese and iron to oxidize methane to carbon dioxide. These same compounds may have been key to methane oxidation in the early, oxygen-less days of Earth’s atmosphere.

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Nickel: The New Biomarker

Members of NAI’s team at Penn State and their colleagues have a new paper in PNAS exploring the viability of using isotopes of the element nickel as biomarkers. Nickel is an important trace nutrient for methanogens, which preferentially use one isotope of nickel over another in their metabolic processes. Nickel, unlike iron, doesn’t seem to go through significant redox changes without a biological tie, therefore considering it as a biomarker is less complicated and potentially more reliable. Testing ancient sediments and observing nickel isotopic fractionation could pinpoint where and when methanogens arose.

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Increasing the Lifespan of Life on Earth

According to a new study from NAI’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory Team and colleagues at Cal Tech, the lifespan of Earth's biosphere could be prolonged, even as the Sun’s luminosity increases and threatens to wipe out all life on Earth. Published in PNAS, the study points to the substantial reduction of the total pressure of Earth’s atmosphere, achieved by removing massive amounts of nitrogen from it. This would regulate the surface temperatures, allow carbon dioxide to remain in the atmosphere to support life, and could tack an additional 1.3 billion years onto Earth’s expected lifespan.

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For Students and Young Investigators

Ph.D.-level Graduate Training Position in Biogeochemical Ocean Modeling

Faculty of Geosciences

Utrecht University’s Faculty of Geosciences offers education and research concerning the geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and anthroposphere. With a population of 2,200 students (BSc and MSc) and 575 staff, the faculty is a strong and challenging organisation. The Faculty is organised in four Departments: Innovation and Environmental Sciences, Earth Sciences, Physical Geography, and Human Geography and Urban and Regional Planning.

Currently, we are looking to fill the following position within the Geochemistry group at the Department of Earth Sciences:

PhD researcher in Biogeochemical Ocean Modeling (1,0 fte)

Job description

The PhD-researcher will be employed in a project on:

Modeling Ocean Biogeochemistry in the mid-Cretaceous: reconstructing the nutrient-biosphere-climate link

Massive amounts of organic matter were buried in ocean sediments during mid-Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAEs). As yet, a quantitative understanding of the mechanisms and feedbacks responsible for the perturbation of the oxygen, carbon and nutrient cycles around OAEs is still lacking. In this project, general circulation modeling for the global ocean will be used to elucidate the triggers for global ocean anoxia during the Cenomanian/Turonian (C/T) boundary event (~94 Myrs BP). In particular, the role of changes in riverine inputs and upwelling intensity in determining nutrient availability and oxygen conditions in the Atlantic ocean will be addressed. Proxy and burial data from a companion project will be used to define model scenarios and to evaluate model results. The results of this study will greatly improve our ability to predict the consequences of current global warming on biogeochemical dynamics and the feedbacks on the biosphere and climate in the modern ocean.

Project partners include researchers at the Faculty of Biology and the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU) in Utrecht and the University of Bergen, Norway. Funding is provided by the Focus and Mass program of the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University.

Qualifications

We are looking for a highly motivated individual with an MSc or equivalent degree in Geosciences, Oceanography, Environmental Sciences or a related field. Experience, or a strong interest in biogeochemistry and modeling is desirable. He/she should communicate easily in English, both verbally and in writing.

For more information: http://www.uu.nl/EN/faculties/geowetenschappen/facultystructure/vacancies/Pages/default.aspx

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Education and Public Outreach

NOVA ScienceNOW - Hunt for Alien Earths

NOVA’s ScienceNOW series, hosted by Neil de Grasse Tyson, has just released a new episode called Hunt for Alien Earths which is devoted to the work of astronomers who search for planets orbiting other stars that might host life. Astrobiologists Lisa Kaltenegger, David Charbonneau, and Geoff Marcy are featured in this twelve minute video.

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Summer Camp: The Quest for Life

This summer, NAI’s new team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (also known as "The New York Center for Astrobiology") played a major role in hosting the 2009 ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp. The camp is a free, academic program of The Harris Foundation, named for Bernard A. Harris, MD, an accomplished NASA astronaut, physician and entrepreneur, and the first African American to walk in space.

The theme of this year’s camp, held from June 14-26th, was The Quest for Life, and 50 middle school students participated. During the two exciting weeks, students went on several field trips to the Albany Pine Bush, New York State Museum, Herkimer Diamond Mine, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. After hearing about NASA’s upcoming missions to the Moon, the students enjoyed watching together the LRO/LCROSS launch on NASA TV. Students also took several classes and completed many activities dealing with topics such as life, astronomy, space exploration, the cosmic calendar, the Drake Equation, and satellites and geocaching.

The main activity for the students was to propose a mission to search for life on either Mars, Europa, or Titan; there were eight proposals developed in all. The proposal judged to be the best outlined a mission to Europa. The students from that team will be interviewed at WAMC Northeast Public Radio studios in Albany, NY, through which they’ll share their experience with the local community, inspiring others to participate next year.

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Students Monitor Hydrothermal Features in Lassen Volcanic National Park

The Lassen Astrobiology Student Internship Program, a collaboration between NAI’s Ames team, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and Red Bluff High School, will wrap up its first year of activity in August. Nine high school students and their chemistry teacher, with training from NAI scientists and under the supervision of a park ranger, have made eight field trips to various sites within the park throughout the course of the school year. They monitored field sites and made seasonal measurements of temperature, pH, and water chemistry of the hydrothermal features. PBS station KNPB, Reno, NV, interviewed the students while sample collections were underway. A feature presentation about the program was aired in June.

The year culminated in a special event at Red Bluff High School where Ames team PI Dave Des Marais gave a public lecture entitled, “Astrobiology Program: Environment, Life, Lassen, and Students.” The student interns were awarded certificates of achievement and then described their field work in a lively presentation to an audience of 100 parents, school board, and community members. A reporter from Red Bluff’s newspaper, the Daily News, covered this event and a story ran the following day.

The Astrobiology Internship Program will continue next year, expanding to include more frequent communication between the students and their NAI mentors via videoconferencing. The end product of the intern’s research will be an online, relational database including hydrothermal feature physical characteristics: pH, temperature, GPS coordinates, digital photos, and water analysis. This database, as it builds over the years, will be a valuable resource for extreme environment analogue research.

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For the Astrobiology Community

Planetary Science Decadal Survey: Astrobiology White Papers Posted for Comment

Comments are being solicited from members of the astrobiology community on the following paper(s) that will be submitted to the 2009-2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. Papers will be revised based on community feedback. Additonal papers will be posted as they become available.

* Astrobiology Research Priorities for Exoplanets (Last Updated: May 28, 2009)
* Astrobiology Research Priorities for Mercury, Venus, and the Moon (Added: June 8, 2009)
* Astrobiology Research Priorities for Mars (Added: June 10, 2009)
* Astrobiology Research Priorities for the Outer Solar System (Added June 15, 2009)
* Astrobiology Research Priorities for Primitive Asteroids (Added July 22, 2009)
* Limits of Terrestrial Life in Space (Added July 24, 2009)
* An Astrobiological Lens on Planetary System Science (Added July 24, 2009)
* Astrobiology Priorities for Planetary Science Flight Missions (Added July 24, 2009)

Please send comments on the first 5 papers (the last added July 22) to ps_decadal@nx.arc.nasa.gov no later than July 31, 2009. Please send comments on papers posted subsequently to the same address by August 17, 2009.

For more information and to download the papers, click here.

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Lead NASA Astrobiology Civil Servant Position Now Available

The Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is now advertising for the senior Program Scientist for Astrobiology. In general, this civil servant will oversee the science content and execution of the Astrobiology Program. A detailed description of the position and how to apply for this opportunity can be found on http://www.usajobs.gov/ using the announcement number (or search number): HQ09B0156. This position opened on July 10 and will close August 10, 2009. I encourage anyone who is interested to apply.

James L. Green
Director Planetary Science Division

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Lead Formal Educator Position at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP)

The ASP is looking for a creative person with good knowledge of astronomy and experience in K-12 education to work on a number of existing and developing programs in astronomy education. Current duties include coordinating Project ASTRO (a program that links volunteer astronomers with 4th - 9th grade teachers), managing a web-based quarterly newsletter for teachers, conducting training programs for school districts interested in hands-on astronomy, helping with grant writing, and assisting with other initiatives in education.

More detailed information about the position and specific instructions for applying can be found at the Society's web site at: http://www.astrosociety.org/about/career.html

More information about the education programs of the 120-year old international society, headquartered in San Francisco, can be found at: http://www.astrosociety.org/education.html

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ROSES-09 Amendment 9: New Proposal Opportunity in Appendix A.39 entitled "ESSP Venture-class Science Investigations: Earth Venture-1"

This amendment establishes a new program element in Appendix A.39 entitled "ESSP Venture-class Science Investigations: Earth Venture-1." The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Earth Science Division's Earth Venture (EV) is a new element within the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program. Earth Venture consists of a series of regularly solicited, competitively selected Earth Science investigations as recommended by the recent National Research Council's decadal survey in Earth science, Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond. This Earth Venture-1 program element within the ROSES-09 NASA Research Announcement solicits proposals for complete suborbital science investigations to conduct innovative, integrated, hypothesis or scientific question-driven approaches to Earth system science, involving temporally sustained data acquisition. For the purpose of this solicitation, a suborbital investigation is one that uses airborne data acquisition systems that may be augmented by surface and/or subsurface facilities. Each suborbital Venture-class investigation must have a life cycle of less than or equal to 5 years and total investigation cost not to exceed $30 million. NASA intends that funds provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 will be utilized to partially fund contracts for selected proposals.

Notices of Intent to propose are due September 2, 2009, and proposals are due November 6, 2009. A preproposal workshop for the Earth Venture-1 proposal opportunity will be held in the Washington, DC area on August 26, 2009. Further details on the EV-1 preproposal workshop will be made available on the index page for this EV-1 program element at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/.

On or about July 10, 2009, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement "Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2009" (NNH09ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ (select "Solicitations" then "Open Solicitations" then "NNH09ZDA001N").

Further information about the Earth Venture-1 program element is available from Dr. Hal Maring, Earth Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546; Telephone: (202) 358-1679; E-mail: hal.maring@nasa.gov.

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AGU Session P13: "Organics in Meteorites and Dust Particles: Composition, Distribution, Formation and Isotopic Anomalies"

Members of the NAI community are cordially invited to submit abstracts to Session P13 of the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco in December. Conveners are seeking recent measurements, or experimental or theoretical results, relating to the relationship between structure and isotopic anomalies of the organic matter in extraterrestrial materials such as meteorites, IDPs, and Stardust samples.

For more information see http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/program/scientific_session_search.php?show=detail&sessid=401 Abstract Submissions will be open by July 30 and close September 3.

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ROSES-09 Amendment 10: New Proposal Opportunity in Appendix D.12: Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) Science Investigation Concept Studies

This amendment establishes a new program element in Appendix D.12 entitled "SPICA Science Investigation Concept Studies." This new program element solicits proposals for concept studies of science investigations that would develop and use scientific instrumentation on the JAXA/ISAS Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA). This mission will cover the mid (> 5 micrometers) through far (~400 micrometers) infrared portion of the spectrum to observe many astrophysical phenomena from distant galaxies to star and planet forming systems in our own Galaxy. SPICA will use a cooled telescope (3.5 m diameter primary, ~5 K) to achieve sensitivities currently inaccessible to existing facilities operating over this wavelength range (SOFIA, Herschel). The planned observatory would have a suite of instruments, both imaging and spectroscopic.

Notices of Intent to propose are due September 2, 2009, and proposals are due November 2, 2009. The maximum period of performance for these concept studies is 6 months.

Further information about the SPICA Science Investigation Concept Studies program element is available from Dr. Eric P. Smith, Astrophysics Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546; Telephone: (202) 358-2439; E-mail: Eric.P.Smith@nasa.gov

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Collaborative Technologies

AbGradCon 2009: A Glimpse into Mixed-Reality Meetings of the Future

Avatars in a virtual amphitheatre watch and listen to a graduate student presentation streamed from AbGradCon into Second Life.

Weary of catching planes, burning up fossil fuels, and spending lots of time and money to attend meetings? Take heart! Virtual worlds are shaping up as possible venues for online meetings—and astrobiology graduate students are leading the way in exploring their potential. On July 17-18, 2009, early-career astrobiologists met at the University of Washington in Seattle for the 6th annual Astrobiology Graduate Student Conference (AbGradCon), and simultaneously in the virtual world Second Life. Students presented talks that were streamed live into Second Life and participated in a real-world and virtual world “mixed reality” poster session. Social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were also used for sharing information before, during and after the conference.

Because talks and the poster session were taking place at the same time in Seattle and Second Life, the organizers set up visual “portals” to allow participants in both worlds to see each other. In Second Life, live video and audio from the Seattle meeting room presentations were streamed into an amphitheatre (shown in the image above) and during the poster session video was shown overhead on a “JumboTron.” In a similar way, in Seattle images from Second Life were projected on a large screen during the poster session and in the meeting rooms where talks were held. The figures below show the portals in both locations.

Portals between worlds: The photo on the left shows students in Seattle pointing to Second Life. The image on the right is a snapshot taken in Second Life, showing avatars and the overhead JumboTron with with real time video of students in Seattle.

While no one expects virtual world meetings to ever replace in-person gatherings, the AbGradCon experiment offered a glimpse of what might be possible in the years to come. A survey of participants who attended via Second Life indicates that it was a welcome alternative for those who could not travel to Seattle—though most would have preferred to be there in person.

There are significant obstacles to overcome before virtual world meetings become commonplace, chief among them are the need for integrated audio communication amongst avatars and lower learning curves for entering and navigating virtual spaces. Even with current limitations, AbGradCon drew participants from Portugal, Greece, Australia, Uruguay and the US who otherwise would not have been able to experience the meeting at all. The experiment brought a new level of openness to the conference and resulted in many lessons learned and ideas for future meetings.

So, you may not want to retire that roller bag just yet, but odds are that at some point in the not-too-distant future you will find yourself seated at a conference center in a virtual world. Astrobiology students will be there to greet you when you arrive.

Mixed-reality poster session at AbGradCon 2009: On the left, avatars study astrobiology science posters and interact with each other in Second Life. On the right, students in Seattle discuss their work at the in-person poster session.

Related links:

Astrobiology Graduate Student Conference: Everyone Gets to Go!

AbGradCon 2009 website

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