IU team receives NASA grant

A team led by an IU professor is trying to discover exactly what kind of creatures reside deep below Earth's surface as part of a NASA grant.\nIU geology professor Lisa Pratt is directing a new team of researchers that received a five year grant worth $5 million from the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Astrobiology is the study of the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe, according to the NAI Web site. \nPratt's team, composed of scientists from eight research institutions, will take samples from deep below the Earth's surface to look for evidence of life. Their experiments have the dual goal of understanding life under the Earth's surface and eventually applying their knowledge and techniques to robots that can do the same experiments on Mars or its moons.\nOne might wonder how life could exist so far below ground. According to Pratt, scientists have found good evidence for life up to 3.5 km below the Earth's surface, and some experiments suggest that life might exist up to 5 or 6 km below the surface. These microscopic, one-celled organisms are living in water-filled cracks deep below the surface where they may have been isolated from the surface for tens to hundreds of million years.\nPratt said studying these creatures allows scientists to "understand the diversity and history of life on Earth as well as to begin thinking about how life on a very different kind of planet or on a moon like Io might extract energy from the environment so that it can grow and reproduce."\nIn addition to an average temperature of negative 63 degrees Celcius, the dry and chemically harsh surface environment on Mars does not seem hospitable for living creatures. The initial Mars rovers that have explored the planet have turned over rocks but have not found any convincing evidence of life on the surface of the planet. \nHowever, below the surface of Mars, the environment may tell a completely different story. \n"There are many lines of evidence that suggest below that frozen surface layer there could be liquid water and the environment is suitable for sustaining life if life was ever there to be sustained," Pratt said.\nThe actual work will involve several steps. The scientists will use sterile equipment to drill bore holes in existing active deep mines to extract water and rock samples that are uncontaminated by the water and air in the mine itself. Under the best circumstances, they can isolate any microbes and culture them in a laboratory. If they can't isolate the microbes, they look for biomarkers -- chemical signatures they can compare to a library that indicate whether there is evidence for a living organism in the sample.\nPratt said they are also planning to place instruments in their bore holes and reseal the environment in an attempt to monitor organisms in their original closed habitat. Development of technology that would allow them to monitor these closed bore holes could then be a good model for a robotic drilling instrument that would do similar experiments on Mars.\nThe IU-based team carrying out these experiments also includes researchers from Princeton University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Toronto and the Universities Space Research Association's Lunar Planetary Institute. \nThis team is one of 12 new teams selected this year and one of 16 teams working as part of the NAI, according to a NASA press release. The NAI was founded in 1997 as part of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.\nPratt described the opportunity that this grant gives her and her colleagues as NASA makes decisions about future space flights as being part of an "inner circle." \n"It positions the members of this team to be in the inner circle of scientists making decisions about what instruments will be used to look for life on Mars," she said. "So it's a very exciting time to be involved with NASA."\nLearn more about the search for new life in the universe at http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/