NASA Selects Science Teams for Astrobiology Institute

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

 

Karen Jenvey

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

650-604-4789

karen.jenvey@nasa.gov

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 -

Tobacco Hawkmoth (Sphingidae: Manduca sexta)

A hovering tobacco hawkmoth (Sphingidae: Manduca sexta). The moth's wings beat about 25 times a second and considerable deformation of the wings occurs during certain phases of the wing stroke. (Note the S-shaped deformation of the left wing in this picture).

Based on previous studies on insect flight, researchers assumed that insect wings are relatively rigid as they flap. But research by Andrew Mountcastle, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Washington (UW), used high-speed digital imaging to show that, at least for some insects, wings that flex and deform--similar to what happens to a heavy beach towel when you snap it to get rid of the sand--are best for staying aloft. "The evidence indicates that flexible wings are producing profoundly different air flows than stiff wings, and those flows appear to be more beneficial for generating lift," said Mountcastle.

Mountcastle used particle image velocimetry, a technique commonly used to determine flow velocities in fluids, to study how air flowed over the wings of the tobacco hawkmoth. The method combined laser light and high-speed digital video to model air flow.

To learn more about this research, which was funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, see the UW news story Straighten Up and Fly Right: Moths Benefit More From Flexible Wings Than Rigid

(Date of Image: January 2006)

Credit: Armin Hinterwirth, University of Washington

Scientists Discover New Trigger for Immense North Atlantic Plankton Bloom

Phenomenon of spring and summer is jump-started by swirling currents of seawater

On this July 4th week, U.S. beachgoers are thronging their way to seaside resorts and parks to celebrate with holiday fireworks.

Across the horizon and miles out to sea toward the north, the Atlantic Ocean's own spring and summer ritual is unfolding: the blooming of countless microscopic plant plankton, or phytoplankton.

In what's known as the North Atlantic Bloom, an immense number of phytoplankton burst into color, first "greening" then "whitening" the sea as one species follows another.

In research results published in this week's issue of the journal Science, scientists report evidence of what triggers this huge bloom.

Whirlpools, or eddies, swirl across the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean sustaining phytoplankton in the ocean's shallower waters where they can get plenty of sunlight to fuel their growth, keeping them from being pushed downward by the ocean's rough surface.

The result is a burst of spring and summer color atop the ocean's waters.

How important is the bloom to the North Atlantic Ocean and beyond--to the global carbon cycle?

Much like forests, springtime blooms of microscopic plants in the ocean absorb enormous quantities of carbon dioxide, emitting oxygen via photosynthesis. 

Their growth contributes to the oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide, amounting globally to about one-third of the carbon dioxide humans put into the air each year through the burning of fossil fuels.

The North Atlantic is critical to this process; it's responsible for more than 20 percent of the ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide.

An important scientific question is how this "biological pump" for carbon might change in the future as Earth's climate evolves.

In winter, strong winds generate mixing that pushes phytoplankton into deeper waters, robbing them of sunlight but drawing up nutrients from the depths. As winter turns to spring, days are longer and plankton are exposed to more sunlight, fueling their growth.

"Our results show that the bloom starts through eddies, even before the sun begins to warm the ocean," says Amala Mahadevan, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and lead author of the Science paper.

Co-authors of the paper are Eric D'Asaro and Craig Lee of the University of Washington, and Mary Jane Perry of the University of Maine.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

"Every undergraduate who takes an introductory oceanography course learns about the ecological and climate significance of the North Atlantic Bloom--as well as what causes it," says Don Rice, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "This study reminds us that, when it comes to the ocean, the things we think we know hold some big surprises."

The newly discovered mechanism helps explain the timing of the spring and summer bloom, known to mariners and fishers for centuries and clearly visible in satellite images.

It also offers a new look at why the bloom has a patchy appearance: it is shaped by eddies that, in essence, orchestrate its formation.

Making the discovery was no easy feat. "Working in the North Atlantic Ocean is challenging," says Perry, "but we were able to track a patch of seawater off Iceland and follow the progression of the bloom in a way that hadn't been done before."

"Our field work was set up with floats, gliders and research ships that all worked tightly together," adds D'Asaro. "They were in the same area, so we could put together a cohesive picture of the bloom."

The scientists focused on phytoplankton known as diatoms. Diatoms live in glass houses--walls made of silica. "When conditions are right, diatom blooms spread across hundreds of miles of ocean," says Lee, "bringing life-sustaining food to sometimes barren waters."

In April 2008, Lee, Perry and D'Asaro arrived in a storm-lashed North Atlantic aboard the Icelandic research vessel Bjarni Saemundsson.

They launched specially-designed robots in the rough seas. A float that hovered below the water's surface was also deployed. It followed the motion of the ocean, moving around, says D'Asaro, "like a giant phytoplankton."

Lurking alongside the float were six-foot-long, teardrop-shaped gliders that dove to depths of up to 1,000 meters. After each dive, the gliders, working in areas 20 to 50 kilometers around the float, rose to the surface, pointed their antennas skyward and transmitted their stored data back to shore.

The float and gliders measured the temperature, salinity and velocity of the water, and gathered information about the chemistry and biology of the bloom itself--oxygen, nitrate and the optical signatures of the phytoplankton.

Scientists aboard two ships, the Woods Hole-operated research vessel Knorr and Iceland's Bjarni Saemundsson, visited the area four times.

Soon after measurements from the float and gliders started coming in, the scientists saw that the bloom had started, even though conditions still looked winter-like.

"It was apparent that some new mechanism, other than surface warming, was behind the bloom's initiation," says D'Asaro.

To find answers, the researchers needed sophisticated computer modeling.

Enter Mahadevan, who then used three-dimensional computer models to look at information collected at sea by Perry, D'Asaro and Lee.

She generated eddies in a model, using the north-to-south variation of temperature in the ocean. The model showed that without eddies, the bloom happened several weeks later and didn't have the space and time structures actually observed in the North Atlantic.

In future research, the scientists hope to put the North Atlantic Bloom into a broader context. They believe that much could be learned by following the bloom's evolution across an entire year, especially with gliders and floats outfitted with new sensors. The sensors would look at the zooplankton that graze on a phytoplankton smorgasbord.

These data could be integrated, say the oceanographers, into models that would offer a more complete story.

"What we're learning about eddies is that they're a critical part of life in the ocean," says Perry. "They shape ocean ecosystems in countless ways."

Eddies and phytoplankton, the researchers believe, are central to the oceanic cycling of carbon, without which climate on Earth would look very different.

"We envision using gliders and floats to make measurements--and models--of ocean physics, chemistry and biology," says D'Asaro, "that span wide regions of the world ocean."

And that, says Lee, would spark a new understanding of the sea, all from tiny plankton that each spring and summer bloom by the millions and millions.

 -NSF-

Seattle Museum Of Flight Hosts NASA Future Forum Dec. 9

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington     

Lee Keller

Seattle Museum of Flight

WASHINGTON -- The second NASA Future Forum of 2011 will be held at The Museum of Flight in Seattle on Friday, Dec. 9 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PST. The forum will bring together NASA officials and local business and commercial space leaders to discuss the agency's role in advancing innovation, technology, science, engineering and education, and NASA's benefit to the nation's economy.

The forum will feature panel discussions on the importance of these areas to the nation's economic future as well as commercial space investments and their benefits. Speakers will include NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, Seattle’s Museum of Flight President and CEO Doug King, and panelists from Aerojet, Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, the University of Washington, Virgin Galactic and the Washington Technology Industry Association.

Media representatives interested in attending the forum should contact David Steitz at david.steitz@nasa.gov or 202-358-1730 by 3 p.m. PST on Wednesday, Dec. 7. The forum is open to the public but preregistration is required. Space is limited. Registration will close after meeting space capacity has been met. Public registration is available online at http://events.signup4.com/futureforum_seattle.

The forum will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed online at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Social media users can participate in the forum via Twitter using the hashtag: #NASAFuture. During the event, Tweeps can submit questions by including @NASA_Technology in their tweet.

For more information about the Seattle Museum of Flight, visit http://www.museumofflight.org.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

- end -