NASA Symposium Marks 50-Year-Search for Signs of Life in Universe

Dwayne C. Brown                                        

Headquarters, Washington                                    

 

Linda Billings

George Washington University, Washington

WASHINGTON -- Media representatives are invited to attend a NASA symposium on Thursday, Oct. 14, from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. EDT, where world-renowned scientists will address past, present, and future activities in the search for signs of life in the universe. The event will take place at the Lockheed Martin Global Vision Center in Crystal City, Va. NASA Television’s Education channel and the agency's Web site will provide live coverage via a Lockheed Martin Webcast at http://www.livestream.com/astrobiology50th.

Scientists from NASA and around the world are celebrating a half century of astrobiology research. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. George Washington University in Washington consults with NASA in this arena and helped organize the speakers for the symposium.

Speakers include former NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin; James E. Lovelock of the University of Oxford; and Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Lovelock and Margulis are early NASA astrobiology investigators and co-developers of the Gaia theory, which proposes that Earth and all of its life forms function as a single interconnected system. Other notable speakers are Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; Nobel laureate Baruch Blumberg; and planetary habitability researcher Victoria Meadows of the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a complete list of speakers, visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_50th.html.

Media representatives interested in attending should send an email to Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov. International journalists should provide their nationality, passport number and expiration date by 6 p.m. EDT, Monday, Oct. 11. Domestic journalists should include their affiliation and office phone number by 6 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct 12.

For more information about NASA astrobiology activities, visit http://astrobiology.nasa.gov.

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