NASA has often stated (e.g. MSL Science Corner1) that it’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), “Curiosity,” Mission to Mars carries no life detection experiments. This is in keeping with NASA’s 36-year explicit ban on such, imposed immediately after the 1976 Viking Mission to Mars. The space agency attributes the ban to the “ambiguity” of that Mission’s Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment, fearing an adverse effect on the space program should a similar “inconclusive” result come from a new robotic quest. Yet, despite the NASA ban, this author, the Viking LR Experimenter, contends there are “stealth life detection instruments” aboard Curiosity. These are life detection instruments in the sense that they can free the Viking LR from the pall of ambiguity that has held it prisoner so long. Curiosity’s stealth instruments are those seeking organic compounds, and the mission’s high-resolution camera system. Results from any or all of these devices, coupled with the Viking LR data, can confirm the LR’s life detection claim. In one possible scenario, Curiosity can, of itself, completely corroborate the finding of life on Mars. MSL has just successfully landed on Mars. Hopefully, its stealth confirmations of life will be reported shortly.

The presence of water (in liquid form) within the gullies of the Newton Crater from Mars (near the equator), oil-like hydrocarbons on the surface, gas hydrates in the deeper zones on Mars, and a list of publications on the geochemistry and astrobiology of carbonaceous chondrites have indicated that these petroleum hydrocarbons are closely related to the complex biological species similar to our terrestrial environment. Recent evidence of the possible presence of bacterial globule associated with carbonate minerals in the geological history of Mars may have indicated the link between possible bacterial growth and generation of petroleum hydrocarbons on Mars. Recent evidence of the possible presence of bacterially derived source rocks (organic rich black carbonaceous rocks) and heat flow distribution within Eberswalde and Holden areas of Mars during the earlier Martian geological time (possibly within the first 2 Ga) may have been originated from both biogeneic and thermogenic oil and gas hydrates. The thermal evolution of this biological geopolymer (source rock) could be observed in our earlier findings within the carbonaceous chondrites which show three distinct thermal events. Based on the current knowledge gained from carbonaceous chondrites, deltas, and hydrocarbons present within Mars, the methane on Mars may have been derived from the following sources: (1) deeper gas hydrates; (b) from the cracking of oil to gas within deeper oil or gas bearing reservoirs from a higher reservoir temperature; and (c) the high temperature conversion of current bacterial bodies within the upper surface of Mars.

Carbonaceous meteorites provide the best direct evidence for the types and abundances of organic compounds that were present at approximately the time of formation of our solar system. The occurrence of eight amino acids in carbonaceous meteorites that are ubiquitous to all life as we know it has led to much discussion concerning their significance for the origin of life. The fact that several of the protein amino acids in carbonaceous meteorites have been reported to contain an L-enantiomer excess led to the initial speculation that the preferred stereochemistry for the organic constituents of life as we know it was derived from this extraterrestrial source1. Hypotheses that have been used to explain this extraterrestrial L-amino acid excess are discussed within the context of the results of recent laboratory experiments.

In 1864, Louis Pasteur attempted to cultivate living microorganisms from pristine samples of the Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorite. His results were negative and never published, but recorded it in his laboratory notebooks. At that time, only aerobic liquid or agar-based organic reach media were used, as his research on anaerobes had just started. In our laboratory the Murchison CM2 carbonaceous meteorite was selected to expand on these studies for microbiological study by cultivation on anaerobic mineral media. Since the surface could have been more easily contaminated, interior fragments of a sample of the Murchison meteorite were extracted and crushed under sterile conditions. The resulting powder was then mixed in anoxic medium and injected into Hungate tubes containing anaerobic media with various growth substrates at different pH and salinity and incubated at different temperatures. The goal of the experiments was to determine if living cells would grow from the material of freshly fractured interior fragments of the stone. If any growth occurred, work could then be carried out to assess the nature of the environmental contamination by observations of the culture growth (rates of speed and biodiversity); live/dead fluorescent staining to determine contamination level and DNA analysis to establish the microbial species present. In this paper we report the results of that study.

Environmental and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM and FESEM) investigations have shown that a wide variety of carbonaceous meteorites contain the remains of large filaments embedded within freshly fractured interior surfaces of the meteorite rock matrix. The filaments occur singly or in dense assemblages and mats and are often encased within carbon-rich, electron transparent sheaths. Electron Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) spot analysis and 2D X-Ray maps indicate the filaments rarely have detectable nitrogen levels and exhibit elemental compositions consistent with that interpretation that of the meteorite rock matrix. Many of the meteorite filaments are exceptionally well-preserved and show evidence of cells, cell-wall constrictions and specialized cells and processes for reproduction, nitrogen fixation, attachment and motility. Morphological and morphometric analyses permit many of the filaments to be associated with morphotypes of known genera and species of known filamentous trichomic prokaryotes (cyanobacteria and sulfur bacteria). The presence in carbonaceous meteorites of diagenetic breakdown products of chlorophyll (pristane and phytane) along with indigenous and extraterrestrial chiral protein amino acids, nucleobases and other life-critical biomolecules provides strong support to the hypothesis that these filaments represent the remains of cyanobacteria and other microorganisms that grew on the meteorite parent body. The absence of other life-critical biomolecules in the meteorites and the lack of detectable levels of nitrogen indicate the filaments died long ago and can not possibly represent modern microbial contaminants that entered the stones after they arrived on Earth. This paper presents new evidence for microfossils, biomolecules and biominerals in carbonaceous meteorites and considers the implications to some of the major hypotheses for the Origin of Life.

Sylvite is a potassium chloride (KCl) mineral that was first discovered in 1832 in evaporite deposits in sedimentary basins of Mt. Vesuvius. Sylvite is colorless (grey or white) but it is often found in association with red deposits of halite and a variety of other minerals (e.g., hilgardite, volkovskite, trembathite and strontioginorite). We have conducted an Optical Microscopy and Microbiological study of freshly fractured interior material of core samples of Sylvite and Halite from the Penobsquis Mines of Kings County, New Brunswick. These samples are dated as Early Carboniferous period, and of Mississippian sub-period (Toumaisian stage 345-359 Myr) from the Upper Halite Member of the Windsor Group Evaporites. During this study, viable microorganisms were isolated in enrichment cultures that represent an ancient life of the deposits. Currently, in microbiology, there are several records of the isolation of viable bacterial cultures from the Permian salt crystals and oil. In this article, we present the preliminary results of the study of ancient anaerobic enrichment cultures isolated from Mississippian Sylvite and Halite samples. Therefore, this study extends by more than 50 million years the paleontological record of viable and culturable microorganisms preserved in ancient salt crystals.

In this work we pose a question if the laws for the emergence of life from the abiotic matter can exist even before carbon and the organic compounds were available. Carbon as an element became available via nucleosynthesis in the stars, and various carbon compounds were later made in the interstellar space and on the various objects in space. Is the emergence of life blue-printed as some general law which would then guarantee that life would evolve in the universe, or is it a law which co-evolved with the organic compounds and the environment in which they existed and which may be a subject to chance? This question is of a fundamental importance for astrobiology, which seeks extraterrestrial life without really knowing if it exists. Numerous articles and books have been written on the subject of the inevitability of life in the universe, on the evolution of matter which leads to life, and on the role of chance in the emergence of life. We select from these resources, critically examine them, and provide an inclusive summary, which we believe will be useful to astrobiologists.

The generally accepted notion of a single origin of life from a primordial soup on the early Earth has been challenged recently by the suggestion of a “second life,” “shadow life,” and even “biological dark matter.” The problem in classifying these microorganisms is in the difficulty or complete failure of the 16s genetic fingerprinting process, suggesting a different underlying biochemistry resulting from at least a second origin of life. We consider an extension of this concept to include continuous origination of life throughout Earth’s history, up to the present. The consequences for interpreting the “tree of life” are also considered.

The standard (old) cosmological model ΛCDMHC is flawed by fluid mechanical simplifications of the Jeans 1902 theory of gravitational structure formation. Corrections result in HydroGravitational Dynamics (HGD, new) cosmology and early, cosmos-wide, life termed the biological big bang. Kinematic viscosity, turbulence and diffusivity as well as fossil turbulence and fossil turbulence waves of new cosmology require early and massive plasma-epoch fragmentation by voids. Old cosmology gives no stars or planets for 400 million years (the dark ages) and can only result in extremely rare, intermittent, and highly localized life, if any, with no cosmic distribution mechanism. At the plasma to gas transition time 300,000 years, new cosmology produces 30,000,000 planets per star in dense, Jeans-mass, proto-globular- star-cluster clumps (PGCs) that host the formation of stars by planet mergers. Supernovae seed the small hydrogen planets with oxides to form deep-water oceans, giving life at two million years and evolved complex life in freezing cold oceans by eight million years. Cosmic distribution of HGD life is assured by jets from supernovae and active galactic nuclei. Old biology becomes a new extraterrestrial cosmic biology. Herschel-Planck-Spitzer-WMAP space telescope images show these PGCs by the infrared light of their planet mergers.

The origin of life on Earth took a puzzlingly short time. Panspermia is appealing because it means that the origin of life need not be confined to a few million years on one planet. Similar puzzles arise in the evolution of higher life forms. Punctuated equilibrium, for example, seems to violate the darwinian account of gradual evolution by trial-and-error, a few DNA nucleotides at a time. The strong version of panspermia alleviates this puzzle as well. If all of life comes ultimately from space, genes may appear to be older than necessary, evolution by the acquisition of whole genes or suites of genes, by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), becomes much more important, and punctuated equilibrium is not surprising. Does evidence support this supposition? How common are old genes? How important is HGT versus the gradual composition of genetic programs? We will look at these questions.

The old view that prebiotic reactions in water are hampered by the low solubility of the organic compounds in water is now being revised due to the discoveries of the reactions “on water”. These reactions occur in the heterogeneous system comprising of the organic compounds and water. Unexpectedly, such reactions are extremely efficient; they often give quantitative yields, and are accelerated in the presence of water as compared to the organic solvents. These “on water” reactions are not the same as the “in water” reactions, which occur in solution, and are thus homogenous. Examples of the “on water” reactions include Diels-Alder, Claisen, Passerini and Ugi reactions, among many others. Some of these reactions are multicomponent, but give a single product. We survey a selected number of the “on water” reactions, which have a potential prebiotic applications.

Coacervates are colloidal systems that are comprised of two immiscible aqueous layers, the colloid-rich layer, so-called coacervate, and the colloid-poor layer, so-called equilibrium liquid. Although immiscible, the two phases are both water-rich. Coacervates are important for prebiotic chemistry, but also have various practical applications, notably as transport vehicles of personal care products and pharmaceuticals. Our objectives are to explore the potential of coacervates as prebiotic chemical reactors. Since the reaction medium in coacervates is water, this creates a challenge, since most organic reactants are not water-soluble. To overcome this challenge we are utilizing recent Green Chemistry examples of the organic reactions in water, such as the Passerini reaction. We have investigated this reaction in two coacervate systems, and report here our preliminary results.

The studies on planetary radiative transfer computation have become important elements to disk-averaged spectral characterization of potential exoplanets. In this paper, we report an improved ray-tracing based atmospheric simulation model as a part of 3-D earth-like planet model with 3 principle sub-components i.e. land, sea and atmosphere. Any changes in ray paths and their characteristics such as radiative power and direction are computed as they experience reflection, refraction, transmission, absorption and scattering. Improved atmospheric BSDF algorithms uses Q.Liu's combined Rayleigh and aerosol Henrey-Greenstein scattering phase function. The input cloud-free atmosphere model consists of 48 layers with vertical absorption profiles and a scattering layer with their input characteristics using the GIOVANNI database. Total Solar Irradiance data are obtained from Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) mission. Using aerosol scattering computation, we first tested the atmospheric scattering effects with imaging simulation with HRIV, EPOXI. Then we examined the computational validity of atmospheric model with the measurements of global, direct and diffuse radiation taken from NREL(National Renewable Energy Laboratory)s pyranometers and pyrheliometers on a ground station for cases of single incident angle and for simultaneous multiple incident angles of the solar beam.

The rapidly accelerating rate of discovery of exoplanets has been dubbed the “golden age of discovery” of these planets, with an increasing number approaching Earth-like terrestrial planets, in habitable zones. Improving capability of both ground-based and space-based instrumentation permits the examination of a given exoplanet’s transmission and reflectance spectra that may hold clues to a habitable environment, and possibly, an indication of extraterrestrial life. To provide a context for assessing these clues, we consider how Earth would have appeared to an observer at interstellar distances, and how this appearance would have changed from shortly after its formation, to the present.

The analysis of all groups of Archaea performed in two-dimensions have demonstrated a specific distribution of Archaean species as a function of pH/temperature, temperature/salinity and pH/salinity. Work presented here is an extension of this analysis with a three dimensional (3D) modeling in logarithmic scale. As it was shown in 2D representation, the “Rules of the Diagonal” have been expressed even more clearly in 3D modeling. In this article, we used a 3D Mesh modeling to show the range of distribution of each separate group of Archaea as a function of pH, temperature, and salinity. Visible overlap and links between different groups indicate a direction of evolution in Archaea. The major direction in ancestral life (vector of evolution) has been indicated: from high temperature, acidic, and low-salinity system towards low temperature, alkaline and high salinity systems. Specifics of the geometrical coordinates and distribution of separate groups of Archaea in 3 D scale were analyzed with a mathematical description of the functions. Based on the obtained data, a new model for the origin and evolution of life on Earth is proposed. The geometry of this model is described by a hyperboloid of one sheet. Conclusions of this research are consistent with previous results derived from the two-dimensional diagrams. This approach is suggested as a new method for analyzing any biological group in accordance to its environmental parameters.

Numerous chemical additives lower the freezing point of water, but life at sub-zero temperatures is sustained by a limited number of biological cryoprotectants. Antifreeze proteins in fish, plants, and insects provide protection to a few degrees below freezing. Microbes have been found to survive at even lower temperatures, and with a few exceptions, antifreeze proteins are missing. Survival has been attributed to external factors, such as the high salt concentration of brine veins and adhesion to particulates or ice crystal defects. We have discovered an endogenous cryoprotectant in the cell wall of bacteria, lipoteichoic acid biopolymers. Adding 1% LTA to bacteria cultures immediately prior to freezing provides 50% survival rate, similar to the results obtained with 1% glycerol. In the absence of an additive, bacterial survival is negligible as measured with the resazurin cell viability assay. The mode of action for LTA cryoprotection is unknown. With a molecular weight of 3-5 kDa, it is unlikely to enter the cell cytoplasm. Our observations suggest that teichoic acids could provide a shell of liquid water around biofilms and planktonic bacteria, removing the need for brine veins to prevent bacterial freezing.

Extremophilic cold-adapted sequences and their degradation codes have been studied using fractal dimension and Shannon entropy. The nucleotide fluctuation of a DNA and/or RNA sequence can be studied as a random series using the nucleotide atomic number differences between A, T, C, G, and U. Studies of degradation codes suggest a positive correlation of Shannon entropy with mRNA stability, and a negative correlation of fractal dimension with mRNA stability.

Previous space flight experience has demonstrated that microorganisms are just as ubiquitous in space habitats as they are on Earth. Numerous incidences of biofilm formation within space habitats have been reported; some of which were identified only after damage to spacecraft structures and irritation to astronaut’s skin occurred. As we increase the duration of spaceflight missions, it becomes legitimate to question the long-term effects of microgravity on bacteria. To begin this assessment, Escherichia coli K-12 strain MG1655 was grown for one thousand generations (1000G) under low shear modeled microgravity. Subsequently, growth kinetics and the presence of biofilm were assessed in the 1000G strain as compared to a strain (1G) briefly exposed to LSMMG. Overall, the analysis revealed that (i) there was no obvious difference in growth kinetics between the 1G and 1000G strains, and (ii) although biofilm formation was not seen in the 1G strain it did in fact occur as exposure time increased. The results suggest that long-term exposure to the space environment likely favors biofilm formation in many organisms.

Extraterrestrial life contradicts the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) Hierarchical Clustering (HC) model for cosmology, as well as its dark energy extension (by the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics) to include an accelerating expansion of the universe (ΛCDMHC). The expansion is driven by the antigravitational property of dark energy that justified Einstein’s cosmological constant (Λ). CDM stars appear only after a dark-age period lasting 300 Myr, rendering cosmic scale extraterrestrial life problematic. Turbulence stresses of Hydro-Gravitational-Dynamics (HGD) cosmology during the big bang are powerful but temporary, so CDM and dark energy are unnecessary. Superclusters fragment at 0.03 Myr. Hydrogen planets in proto-globular-star-cluster (PGC) clumps fragment protogalaxies at the transition to gas (0.3 Myr). The density at 0.03 Myr is preserved by old globular clusters (OGC) as a fossil of first fragmentation. Infrared observations support the HGD prediction (Gibson 1996) and quasar microlensing observation (Schild 1996) that the dark matter of galaxies is Earth-mass gas planets in dense PGC clumps. Water oceans seeded by dust of the first exploding stars at 2 Myr hosted extraterrestrial life spread on cosmic scales. Life anywhere falsifies dark energy.

The discovery of microfossils on carbonaceous meteorites has electrified the public with the first concrete evidence of extraterrestrial biology. But how these organisms colonized and grew on the parent body–the comet–remains a mystery. We report on several features of cyanobacteria that permit them to bioengineer comets, as well as a tantalizing look at interplanetary uses for magnetite framboids that are found in abundance on carbonaceous chondrites. We argue that these structures provide important directionality and energy harvesting features similar to magnetotactic bacteria found on Earth.

Recent studies of comets and cometary dust have confirmed the presence of biologically relevant organic molecules along with clay minerals and water ice. It is also now well established by deuterium/hydrogen ratios that the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites contain indigenous extraterrestrial water. The evidence of extensive aqueous alteration of the minerals in these meteorites led to the hypothesis that water-bearing asteroids or comets represent the parent bodies of the CI1 (and perhaps CM2) carbonaceous meteorites. These meteorites have also been shown to possess a diverse array of complex organics and chiral and morphological biomarkers. Stable isotope studies by numerous independent investigators have conclusively established that the complex organics found in these meteorites are both indigenous and extraterrestrial in nature. Although the origin of these organics is still unknown, some researchers have suggested that they originated by unknown abiotic mechanisms and may have played a role in the delivery of chiral biomolecules and the origin of life on Early Earth.

Preliminary SEM/EDAX studies of the Tissint meteorite shows projections of interior spherical globules rich in C and O. Such concentrations of carbonaceous material in a matrix of mineral grains pose a mystery. These structures are consistent with remnants of biological structures.