Search for life on Mars will start in Siberia
NASA funds permafrost study
to support astrobiology research
May 27, 1999: NASA and Russian scientists have been selected to take the search
for life in the solar system to the frozen reaches of Earth. Richard Hoover of
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Prof. Elena A. Vorobyova of Moscow
State University will investigate the microbiota found in the permafrost and ice of
Siberia, Alaska, and Antarctica.
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.
"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.
One of the startling finds by the Galileo orbiter during its flybys of Europa, Jupiter's third largest moon, is that the
planetoid is covered with massive ice rafts that appear to be in constant motion (left), implying that liquid water is
below the surface. The size of the rafts can be seen by comparing it with a space image of San Francisco (right) at
the same scale. Credit: NASA/JPL
"The microbial extremophiles in the Arctic and Antarctic glaciers and permafrost represent analogues for cells that
might be encountered in the permafrost or ice caps of Mars or other icy bodies of the solar system."
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, 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.
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.
Hoover and Vorobyova find greater import in far smaller organisms.
Diatoms, bacteria, yeasts, cyanobacteria and other microorganisms
may thrive in the ice and permafrost. Other microbes can be revived
after being frozen for long periods. While some microbes, plants and
even large mammals such as mammoth and bison are dead, they may
contain magnificently preserved cellular components, DNA, RNA,
proteins and enzymes.
Not too hot, not too cold...
Astrobiology has highlighted the importance
of extremophiles - life forms that love harsh
conditions. Scientists now recognize that the
realm of habitability for life - "the
Goldilocks Zone" - is far larger than once
believed. Life abounds in the deep hot
"Icy bodies are by far the most numerous of the solar system,"
biosphere: geysers, deep-sea hydrothermal
Hoover pointed out. "The dirty snowballs we call comets, the icevents and deep hot crustal rocks. The
encrusted oceans of the Jovian moons of Europa and Callisto, the icy hyperthermophilic bacteria and archaea
moons of Saturn, and the polar ice caps and permafrost of Mars are found in these regimes may hold vital keys
of paramount importance to astrobiology. They may harbor active
to the origin of life. Astonishingly, living,
microorganisms; ancient microbes that remain viable in a deep
viable and even dormant ancient
anabiosis (i.e., suspended animation) or even long-dead microbes
microorganisms also abound in the deep
with their microstructure, biochemistry, and perhaps even genetic
cold biosphere: the polar ice caps, glaciers,
material preserved."
permafrost and deep-sea sediments. Coldloving and cold-tolerant microbes
"We are studying the microorganisms found in the Arctic and
(psychrophiles and psychrotrophs) include
Antarctic permafrost, glaciers and ice sheets," Hoover said. "This is archaea, bacteria, cyanobacteria and even
a very stable ecosystem because the temperature remains the same
eukaryotic microorganisms such as yeasts
for long periods of time. The paleolife of the permafrost may hold
and diatoms.
keys to the evolution of life on Earth and the distribution of life in
the cosmos."
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.
Left: Hoover examines an exotic microbe found in the deep-ice core
from just above Lake Vostok in Antarctica. The image was
produced using the Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope
(ESEM), one of the tools that he and Vorobyova will use in their
research. The sample was provided by the Institute of Microbiology,
Russian Academy of Sciences. Links to 1341x1800-pixel, 318K
JPG. Credit: NASA/Marshall.
"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
"We also need to understand glaciers to know what to look for and how
Web Links
to seek life on the ice caps of Mars," Hoover explained. For example,
NASA's Astrobiology Institute, based cryoconite holes can be temporary glacial micro-Edens. Cryoconite is
rock debris broken from mountains and rock surfaces by the moving ice
at Ames Research Center.
and captured in the ice.
Listing and abstracts for selected
JURISS research projects, including
When dark cryoconite is transported near the surface of the ice, it
Hoover's work.
absorbs sunlight and becomes warm enough to melt the ice to produce a
13 Jan. 1999: Life on the Edge -- an
hole with liquid water, rich in minerals and nutrients from the rock dust,
educational initiative to teach students
below the rock. For a few hours or weeks, it's springtime on the glacial
about life in extreme environments
ice for a world of minute diatoms, cyanobacteria, green algae, protozoa,
3 Dec. 1998: The frosty plains of
rotifers, and even animals like tardigrades and nematodes.
Europa -- new evidence for water on
Jupiter's moon.
To understand where to look, Hoover and Vorobyova will study the
22 Oct. 1998: Callisto makes a big
splash -- Scientists may have discovered microbial content of permafrost and the structure of the interface
between the soil and ice, and develop techniques that could be used in
a salty ocean and some ingredients for
exploring Mars, Europa, comets, and other icy worlds of our Solar
life on Jupiter's moon
System.
16 Sep. 1998: Great Bugs of Fire -NASA sends volcano-loving microbes
into orbit for materials science research.
1 Sep. 1998: Earth microbes on the
Moon -- Three decades after Apollo 12,
a remarkable colony of lunar survivors
revisited.
12 Mar. 1998: Exotic-looking
microbes turn up in ancient Antarctic
ice -- microbes in the ice above Lake
Vostok
Sourced from: http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast27may99_1/