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

E

D

c/s

c/s

20

20

30

304.09 Å

4.09 Å

opal-CT

opal-CT/-A

°2θ

°2θ

SPHERESPATHWAY I SMOOTHPATHWAY II

Cc/s 20 30opal-A /-CT°2θ4.09 Å

Bc/s 20 30opal-A°2θ4.09 Å

XRPD TRACESAc/s 20 30opal-A°2θ4.0 Å

1µm

2µm

2µm

2µm

5µm

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