[meteorite-list] NASA Selects Science Teams for Astrobiology Institute

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 11:40:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201209051840.q85IeKSd015265_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

Sept. 5, 2012

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Karen Jenvey
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-4789
karen.jenvey at nasa.gov

RELEASE: 12-307

NASA SELECTS SCIENCE TEAMS FOR ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA has awarded five-year grants totaling
almost $40 million to five research teams to study the origin,
evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.

The newly selected teams are from the University of Washington;
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Wisconsin,
Madison; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and University of
Southern California. Average funding to the teams is almost $8
million each. The interdisciplinary teams will become members of the
NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), headquartered at NASA's Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

"These research teams join the NASA Astrobiology Institute at an
exciting time for NASA's exploration programs," said John Grunsfeld,
astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. "With the Curiosity rover preparing to
investigate the potential habitability of Mars and the Kepler mission
discovering planets outside our solar system, these research teams
will help provide the critical interdisciplinary expertise needed to
interpret data from these missions and plan future
astrobiology-focused missions."

The University of Washington's "Virtual Planetary Laboratory," led by
Victoria Meadows, will integrate computer modeling with laboratory
and field-work across a range of disciplines to extend knowledge of
planetary habitability and astronomical biosignatures in support of
NASA missions to study extrasolar planets.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team, led by Roger Summons,
will focus on how signs of life are preserved in ancient rocks on
Earth, with a focus on the origin and evolution of complex life, and
how this knowledge can be applied to studies of Mars using the
Curiosity rover.

The University of Wisconsin team, led by Clark Johnson, will study how
to detect life in modern and ancient environments on Earth and other
planetary bodies.

The University of Illinois team, led by Nigel Goldenfeld, seeks to
define a "universal biology," or fundamental principles underlying
the origin and evolution of life anywhere, through an
interdisciplinary study of how life began and evolved on Earth.

The University of Southern California team, led by Jan Amend, will
study life in the subsurface, a potentially habitable environment on
other worlds. They will use field, laboratory, and modeling
approaches to detect and characterize Earth's subsurface microbial
life.

"The intellectual scope of astrobiology is breathtaking, from
understanding how our planet went from lifeless to living, to
understanding how life has adapted to Earth's harshest environments,
to exploring other worlds with the most advanced technologies to
search for signs of life," NAI Director Carl Pilcher said. "The new
teams cover that breadth of astrobiology, and by coming together in
the NAI, they will make the connections between disciplines and
organizations that stimulate fundamental scientific advances."

These five new teams join 10 other teams led by the University of
Hawaii; Arizona State University, Tempe; The Carnegie Institution of
Washington; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.;
Pennsylvania State University; Georgia Institute of Technology; and
teams at Ames; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.;
and two teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

For more information about the new teams, NAI, and NASA's astrobiology
program, visit:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov

-end-
Received on Wed 05 Sep 2012 02:40:20 PM PDT