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NASA's Office of Space Science has announced that their proposal, Permafrost as Microbial Habitat - in-situ Investigation, was one of 18 chosen from 123 proposals submitted for funding under the Joint U.S./Russian Research in Space Science (JURRISS) Program. Right: Hoover displays growing moss that remained alive yet dormant while frozen for 40,000 years in the permafrost of the Kolyma Lowlands of northeastern Siberia. The sample was provided by David A. Gilichinsky and Elena A. Vorobyova of the Institute of Soil Science and Photosynthesis, Russian Academy of Sciences. Links to 1800x1204-pixel, 483K JPG. Credit: NASA/Marshall. "The microorganisms found in the permafrost, glaciers, and polar ice caps of Earth are of profound significance to astrobiology," Hoover said . "Dormant ancient microbes, and even higher plants such as moss, can remain viable by cryopreservation, resuming metabolic activity upon thawing after being frozen in glacial ice or permafrost for thousands to millions of years. |
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Hoover is a solar scientist
by training who is applying his passion for diatoms - "nature's
living jewels" - to NASA's astrobiology research. He is
a co-investigator on two of the major research initiatives that
NASA selected last year for its new Astrobiology Institute. Hoover's
research on astromaterials is concerned with the microstructure
and chemical composition of microfossils in ancient rocks and
meteorites. He is collaborating on these projects with Alexei
Rozanov, Left: The Viking 1 lander showed water frost or snow on Martian rocks in the early morning hours. Scientists expect that Mars has regions of permafrost where water ice has been locked in the soil for millions of years. (NASA/JPL) Their object is to investigate the microorganisms in the permafrost - permanently frozen soil - and to establish morphological characteristics and chemical biomarkers by which these microbes can be recognized. For more than a century scientists have studied the the frozen remains of mammoths and other creatures that died and were preserved during the last ice age.
"Icy bodies are by far the most numerous of the solar system," Hoover pointed out. "The dirty snowballs we call comets, the ice-encrusted oceans of the Jovian moons of Europa and Callisto, the icy moons of Saturn, and the polar ice caps and permafrost of Mars are of paramount importance to astrobiology. They may harbor active microorganisms; ancient microbes that remain viable in a deep anabiosis (i.e., suspended animation) or even long-dead microbes with their microstructure, biochemistry, and perhaps even genetic material preserved." |
director
of the Institute of Paleontology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
He also is examining microorganisms from 3.6 km (2.3 mi) beneath
the ice sheet above Lake Vostok, Antarctica.
Hoover said three types of life forms are found in permafrost: active ones that eke out a living, forms in suspended anabiosis until things get better, and the ones that simply gave up and died.
"We're very excited about the living microbes and plants that we have found in permafrost and on ice wedges and glaciers and the viable but long dormant, ancient microorganisms that can be cultured from the deep ice cores," Hoover said. "Even dead microbes from ancient permafrost and deep ice are tremendously interesting due to their state of preservation." These preserved life forms (from diatoms and bacteria to mammoths) can yield genetic material for clues about how life has changed on the molecular level and provide a treasure trove of ancient enzymes, proteins, and biochemicals. The ecosystems of the ice and permafrost should provide clues to the potential for life in the permafrost or ice caps of Mars, comets, and on the ice-covered moons of Jupiter (Europa, Ganymede, Callisto) and Saturn (Miranda, Titan), among others. |
 Right: Of
the four Galilean moons of Jupiter - Io, Europa, Ganymede, and
Callisto (shown to relative scale and in order of closeness to
Jupiter) - the latter three are covered with water ice which
apparently floats atop liquid water. This makes them prime candidates
in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. Credit:
NASA/JPL |
When dark cryoconite is transported near the surface of the ice, it absorbs sunlight and becomes warm enough to melt the ice to produce a hole with liquid water, rich in minerals and nutrients from the rock dust, below the rock. For a few hours or weeks, it's springtime on the glacial ice for a world of minute diatoms, cyanobacteria, green algae, protozoa, rotifers, and even animals like tardigrades and nematodes. To understand where to look, Hoover and Vorobyova will study the microbial content of permafrost and the structure of the interface between the soil and ice, and develop techniques that could be used in exploring Mars, Europa, comets, and other icy worlds of our Solar System. |
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