Life has been found in pools of acid, in toxic waste, at the bottom of the sea and at the top of the most inhospitable mountains on Earth. Believe it or not, life has even been detected inside solid rock miles beneath the Earth's surface. If life can survive in such extreme environments on Earth, what about other places? \nAstrobiologists, scientists who study what life could be like on other planets, are trying to answer that question at IU. They're studying organisms that survive miles below the surface of Earth to get clues about the type of life that could exist on Mars or other places in the universe where the building blocks of life as we know them exist. \nIU researchers are members of one of 14 lead teams that make up NASA's new Astrobiology Institute, now in its second year of operation. During the course of the five-year project, NASA will give $5 million to the team to study life in the deep subsurface of the Earth. The principle project the group will tackle involves taking samples from deep mines in the earth to figure out ways to detect life on Mars. \nThe team -- the Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Institute-- is made up of 18 researchers from eight research institutions. IU biology\n professor Lisa Prattheads the team, and other IU members are geology professor Edward Ripley, artist Ruth Droppoand Douglas Pearsonand Michael Jasiak, digital media services managers at University Information Technology Services.
THE SEARCH\nThis summer, Pratt was scheduled to travel with her team to the barren tundra of the Canadian Arctic where they planned to collect samples from the Ulu gold mine, nearly a mile below the Earth's surface. There, they hoped to find signs of life in the saltwater that could resemble present day Martians.\nPratt said she's optimistic that life exists on Mars because of a recent discovery by the Odyssey probe that some of Mars' water could have frozen only a few million years ago, meaning there still may be liquid saltwater underground. Originally, scientists thought water on Mars was frozen 3.5 billion years ago. Where there is water and energy in the form of sunlight, Pratt said, there is at least a chance for life.\nTullis Onstott, Princeton geosciences professor and a member of the IPTAI team, said, "Drilling up at the Ulu gold mine is basically the easiest way of testing the drilling technologies we require for going to Mars." \nBecause the site is one of the deepest and coldest accessible places on Earth -- similar to Mars' climate where daily temperatures usually top out around 30 degrees Fahrenheit -- it gives researchers a chance to find Earth organisms that may resemble Martian life.\nUnfortunately, this summer's trip was canceled because the shaft to the mine couldn't be re-opened, but Pratt and other researchers were still able to study samples they'd previously collected from deep mines in South Africa, the Canadian Arctic and Antarctica. \n"What we're finding is that there's a far more diverse microbial community in the sub-surface than we expected," Pratt said. "We know life is there, but we have no idea how fast it grows, how often it reproduces or how long it lives." \nFinding the answers to these questions could help researchers understand how life could survive on Mars. \nLife on Mars could be very different than life on Earth, Pratt said. Pratt said her best guess is Martian bacteria would be adapted to go without food, sunlight or water for long periods and even have the ability to hibernate. \n"This very slow metabolism could make finding life on Mars difficult, but I think that we will do it in our lifetimes," she said. \nMartian microbes might also be able to repair their own DNA due to the high radiation on Mars, said Pratt. Mars doesn't have an ozone layer to block harmful ultraviolet rays like Earth does.
THE EVOLUTION\nPratt's work with astrobiology started well before she was funded by the Astrobiology Institute. Seven years ago, she began collecting samples with Onstott and IU geology professor Bruce Douglas from more than two miles underground in the gold mines of South Africa. The three spent most of their time in crevices supported by a few logs, using only the most basic safety gear. \nBrett Tipple, a senior at the time who's now enrolled in a doctoral geology program at Yale University, got the opportunity to go along on one trip to South Africa, and said it changed his life.\n"Not everyday does an undergraduate's adviser offer a three-and-a-half month trip to South Africa to work in the deepest mines in the world that averaged between 100 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit," Tipple said. "I had never been to the African continent, let alone overseas. Despite the grueling conditions and the at times 16-hour days spent underground, it was an extremely rewarding experience and got me really interested in astrobiology."
THE REALITY\nWhen Onstott initially suggested to Pratt that they apply for a grant from NASA for their reseach, she said she thought he was crazy. \n"After all, it was dangerous and there was a strong potential for complete failure," she said. \nNASA doesn't usually fund experiments this dangerous, she said. \n"But we were in the right place at the right time, and it got funded."\nWhile work continues at IU as researchers study samples of earth for clues about Mars, NASA is preparing to study the planet firsthand. Several new Mars probes are in the planning stages at NASA to investigate the planet as part of the Bush Administration's new vision for U.S. space exploration, announced in January 2004. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched on Aug. 12 to begin detailed mapping of Mars for this purpose. \nAs yet, no life has been detected on or under the surface of Earth's chilly neighbor, but with the IPTAI team and other groups of terrestrial researchers scouring the dark depths of the Earth for clues about life in outer space, the secrets of the solar system could be uncovered right under our very feet.
