At a press conference today, NASA astrobiology research fellow Felisa Wolfe-Simon announced the discovery of an organism unlike any other on Earth: “a microbe that can substitute arsenic for phosphorus.” The finding questions the assumption of life’s basic components and opens the door for new hypotheses of what life may look like not only on Earth, but on other planets.

Wolfe-Simon, who led the research team, described herself as “always interested in exceptions to the rule,” an outlook that prompted her to find out if there was a living organism that could substitute one of the building blocks of life – phosphorous – with a toxic, yet chemically similar element, arsenic. This question led the team to the harsh conditions of Mono Lake in Northern California, which, despite having high levels of arsenic and three times the salt of seawater, is teeming with life. There they found a microbe, dubbed GFAJ-1. The team took samples of mud at the lake, and, back in the laboratory, created almost identical conditions – except for the elimination of phosphorous and the introduction of high doses of arsenic. The result was extraordinary: “not only did [the microbe] cope,” said Wolfe-Simon, “but it grew and it thrived; and that was amazing.” When the researchers measured the arsenic concentration in the organism, they found it was behaving like phosphorous would within the cell – as the backbone of the DNA.

Putting the role of phosphorous in context, Arizona State University Professor James Elser, explained that life, as is traditionally conceived, relies on phosphorous. Its scarcity on Earth and the concern that it may be running out has prompted many to look for solutions. The research discussed today, of what he described as a “clever organism” capable of evolving to do without the crucial element, may yield new ideas. Elser suggested that practical applications may be explored, like waste water treatment, and bio-energy that does not require phosphorous-based fertilizer. But first in line is the reconsideration of the basic assumption, which Elser has used repeatedly in his teaching, that life needs phosphorous to survive. “I have to thank you and blame you [Felisa] for making our lives more difficult,” he joked.

While still considering the research significant, Steven Benner, Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, was wary of jumping to conclusions. Benner described himself as the chemist brought in to dampen the excitement as he explained why chemists would see this as an “exceptional result” requiring “exceptional evidence.” While questions remain to prove this “exceptional claim,” he said that the organism would be there for further testing. Benner pointed to a 2007 National Academy of Science’s report, The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems — the “weird life” report — to suggest that the conditions that make arsenic too unstable on Earth may be useful in radically different environments, like the cold environment of Titan.

In this respect, the discovery will impact NASA’s search for life, particularly with respect to defining “habitability” outside of Earth, explained Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We still don’t know what might make a habitable environment,” she explained. This research suggests that where arsenic may have been thought of as life-prohibiting and toxic, it may be found to be, if not essential for habitability, at least tolerable for some organisms. Conrad said the impact the discovery would have on NASA programs would be to challenge scientists to “think more broadly about environments one might characterize as habitable.”

According to Wolfe-Simon, the implications are broad. She said that the discovery was “not about arsenic or Mono Lake but thinking about life in a planetary context” and its potential for questioning what was previously thought was possible for life. This microbe shows a “different way to do business” and “it has solved the challenge of being a life in a very different way than we knew of.” The questions arising out of this discovery will open the door for new areas of research and “it will take an army of scientists” to explore, she said.

According to a questioner, the news that NASA would make a significant announcement related to the search for life was met with some disappointment from members of the public when the researchers did not pull an “ET out of a hat.” Mary Voytek, Director of the Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters, said that she was sorry about this disappointment but explained that, “from our perspective, this is a phenomenal finding.” She added that it “will fundamentally change how we define life [and] what we look for in life.”

According to the NASA press release, the research team was made up of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Duquesne University, and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. The findings will be published in today’s edition of Science Express (subscription required).

Women in Aerospace (WIA) held a panel discussion on Thursday, November 18, 2010, about the The Future of Human Spaceflight: Prospects, Programs and Educating the Pipeline. Read a SpacePolicyOnline.com summary of the meeting by looking on our left menu under Our Meeting Summaries, or simply by clicking here.

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory announced that they may have detected the youngest black hole in the vicinity of Earth. Though there are other theories to explain what they are observing, the top choice is that a black hole is forming from the remnants of supernova (SN) 1979C, which was discovered by an amateur astronomer and confirmed by other astronomers in 1979. If correct, the black hole would be only 30 years old based on when observations began.

Supernova 1979C, located 50 million light years away in the M100 galaxy – nearby in astronomical terms – was caused by the collapse of a star 20 times the mass of our Sun. X-ray data from Chandra and other space observatories, including Germany’s ROSAT, have revealed “steady, bright” x-ray emissions since 1995. This high luminosity may be the sign of material being sucked into the black hole.

“If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed,” said Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at a NASA press conference yesterday. Avi Loeb, also from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center explained that about 20% of all core collapsed supernovae are thought to end up as black holes.

Astronomers hope continued observations will help confirm their black hole theory, but another possibility is that they are seeing the formation of a “neutron star with a powerful wind of high energy particles…a ‘pulsar wind nebula'” according to NASA’s press release.

In any case, further study will help scientists understand how massive stars explode, identify the threshold that determines when a supernova forms a black hole or a neutron star, as well as better estimate the number of black holes in the universe. The discovery may also add validity to using the x-ray spectrum as an indirect tool to identify black holes, said Kimberly Weaver of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She added that this would be the first time “we know the exact birth date of a black hole” and that now investigators can “watch how it evolves and changes.” This is a “detective story” put together by astronomers around the world and “we have almost solved the puzzle,” she said.

The results of the current observations will appear in a paper in the New Astronomy journal.

Joanne Padr n Carney, Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS’s) Center for Science, Technology and Congress, said today that the results of the mid-term Congressional elections would bring a number of new faces to the House Science and Technology Committee. Congressman Ralph Hall (R-TX) and Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), have reportedly expressed interest in assuming the leadership spots in the Committee, a change that Padr n Carney said could mean NASA will become a “high priority” for Congress in the next session.

Her comments were made during a AAAS webinar Election 2010: What Do the U.S. Mid-term Elections Mean for Science?, which covered issues such as R&D funding, energy, and biomedical policy and research. Padr n Carney identified several issues impacting the legislative process, including increased oversight, which Representative Hall has said would be one of his priorities. This could have a direct impact on the future of NASA human spaceflight, she suggested.

On a related issue, Padr n Carney said that “the scientific community [will] lose a number of champions,” including Representative Brian Baird (D-WA) and Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN). Gordon currently chairs the House S&T Committee and Baird chairs its Energy and Environment subcommittee. Both are retiring this year. Representative David Foster (D-IL), a physics PhD, is another loss. He lost his seat in the Illinois race.

With deficit reduction an important priority for the next Congress, budget cuts will probably begin next year, pointed out Patrick Clemins, Director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. With funding questions still undecided, debate over the recently enacted 2010 NASA Authorization Act will continue “despite its passage,” said Padr n Carney in response to a SpacePolicyOnline.com question. “We don’t know yet whether there will be funding for another [Shuttle] flight,” she added.

At the end of the day, while NASA may well be the focus of renewed debate in Congress, its status will still depend on how much money it receives to carry out its programs – whatever those may be. An archived version of the webinar will be available on the AAAS Member Central website (membership required).

Just four days before an election that may directly impact the recently agreed upon plans for NASA and the human spaceflight program, the George Washington University held an event discussing implementation challenges of the 2010 National Space Policy (NSP). Stakeholders from industry, academia, government, and the military included the outcome of the election as one of several elements increasing the sense of lingering uncertainty, a challenge in implementing the guidelines laid out in the NSP.

Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute, which co-organized the event, described the NSP’s section on space exploration as problematic. He said it reads like President Obama’s April 15, 2010 speech in Florida where he fleshed out his proposals for NASA that were revealed in the FY2011 budget request, and reflects that integration is still “a work in progress.” Issues of implementation, said Pace, would come up at the interfaces between policy, programs, and budget: “problems happen at the seams,” he added.

Where the policy is clear, as in the direction it lays out for the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), implementation has already begun. Mary Kicza, Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services at NOAA, lauded the policy for providing more clarity and direction to the agency. Already, NOAA has been engaging countries, like Japan, China, India, Canada, and others, in data sharing and other initiatives.

Participants also mentioned elements like the push for increased international cooperation as a positive and implementable aspect of the policy. Not only an opportunity for government agencies, international engagement may also provide a boost to U.S. industry, suggested Marion Blakey, CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association. “International business opportunities may be our industry’s best and only opportunity for growth,” she said, and mentioned India and South Korea as two potential markets. Opening up the U.S. industry further to the international market would require changes in export control rules, also an important priority for the Administration. Participants discussed recent developments in the move to reform export controls with optimism. Elliot Pulham, CEO of the Space Foundation, said that in this area “implementation is happening very rapidly.” Blakey added that the elections next Tuesday add an element of change, but that maintaining good discussion and engagement with newcomers and those already in Congress should be enough to keep momentum going for reform. It will take advocacy, she said, but there is a real opportunity for change.

Where the policy is less clear, on the other hand, implementation issues abound. Victoria Samson, of the Secure World Foundation, for example, praised the policy for its initiatives towards securing the sustainability of space, but pointed to several lingering questions. The possibility of space arms control measures is back in the policy, which states that they would be considered if they prove to be equitable and verifiable – elements she pointed out have yet to be defined.

Some aspects of the NSP are the cause of considerable disagreements. With regard to the new direction to NASA about the commercialization of crew transport to low Earth orbit, a fundamental aspect of the policy, participants repeatedly brought up differences of opinion on what constitutes “commercial.” Pulham, for example, believes that something that is government funded is not commercial and will not be until a “Rockets-R-US” for the commercial launch industry exists. He offered that “things that are too hard, too risky” ought to be governmental, but provided no specific examples.

The human spaceflight (HSF) aspect of the policy, which has been a focal point of the heated debates this summer, remains unclear despite the approval of the 2010 NASA Authorization Act this month. John Logsdon, Professor Emeritus of the George Washington University and founder of the Space Policy Institute, said that in contrast to other aspects of the policy, there is “no agreed-upon policy to implement” the HSF portion of the NSP. He described the environment of the discussions today as “the most confused situation” since December 1960, when President Eisenhower announced the country would no longer have a HSF program – an announcement that was reversed the next year in President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech that initiated the Apollo lunar program. Logsdon described the 2010 authorization act as an “uneasy compromise” and said that in the next 6 months there would be either “more clarity or more compromise and uncertainty.”

Keys for success are program stability and funding security. Robert Dickman, Executive Director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, referred to a common idiom, saying that “policy with resources is vision, but policy without resources is fiction.” With the potential that the Republicans may take over Congress on Tuesday, some fear that the resources to implement these programs may not materialize. Charles Baker of the Office of Space Commerce at the Department of Commerce said that “the unknown” of agency budgets was tied to future economic performance. If the economy performs well, he added, there would be fewer ventures dependent on government money.

Until that day comes, clarity, direction and stability are essential for the implementation of the NSP. “What’s the endgame?” asked Dickman early in the discussion. Several participants agreed that without a long-term strategy in space, lack of clarity could stall or doom many initiatives, hurting the U.S. space program in the long run. Phil McAlister, Special Assistant for Program Analysis at NASA Headquarters, agreed that “we’d be moving farther faster if there was a little more strategy.”

An interesting discussion at the end centered on the idea that a priority-setting process akin to the National Research Council’s science Decadal Surveys could bring such needed direction to the HSF program. SpacePolicyOnline.com’s Marcia Smith, former Director of the NRC’s Space Studies Board that produces many of the Decadal Surveys, was in the audience. She offered reasons why a Decadal-like NRC study might not be successful in setting an agenda for HSF that would be any less subject to the political winds than the many studies already published. She said that it was “an interesting idea,” but “not a panacea.” She questioned whether the hard-to-define HSF community would fall in line behind the recommendations of such a study as do the well-defined academic research communities affected by the current Decadal Surveys. She also pointed out that the NRC issued a report about the rationale and goals of the HSF program last year, but it received little notice because the Augustine Committee review was ongoing at the time.

The day’s discussion, reflecting a wide variety of views on this very issue, suggests that consensus on the future of HSF indeed will be difficult to find. Nevertheless, the 2010 NASA Authorization Act includes a provision requiring NASA to request such a study from the NRC in FY2012. Time will tell how successful it is in setting 10-year HSF priorities that stand the test of time.

To search for life elsewhere in the solar system and the universe beyond, one must first define “life.” That was the message of a day-long celebration of 50 years of NASA research in exobiology and astrobiology on Thursday.

Molecular biologist Steve Benner explained to the audience that one can develop a “laundry list” of criteria that must be met for something to be described as life, but any such list necessarily rests on the biases of the person creating it — a carbon-based life form that needs water to survive. What about life forms that might be based on other elements, like silicon? Benner was a member of a National Research Council study committee that published a report entitled Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, dubbed the “Weird Life” report, which ruminated scientifically on other types of life forms that might exist.

Such questions are not only for Star Trek fans, but for researchers who are actively engaged in searching for life on other planets and their moons in our solar system and beyond. In this case “life” is just that, life, not necessarily intelligent life, which is the focus of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a more controversial undertaking. As recounted by former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin in a rare talk about the space program since he left NASA in 2001, NASA has not directly supported SETI since 1993 when the Senate led the effort to cancel NASA’s involvement in the program. Since then, SETI has relied on private sponsorship.

NASA, however, is fully engaged in the search for life in earlier stages. Since the life forms we know do require water for survival, “follow the water” became the theme for NASA’s planetary exploration program while Goldin was Administrator. Although Benner and others want a more expansive view of what life might be, the reality is that one can only search for what one knows.

James Lovelock of Oxford University, founder of the Gaia hypothesis, reminisced about joining NASA in the early 1960s and being given the task of designing a method to determine if there is life on Mars in four days, which he did — by studying the atmosphere. A decade later he published a book outlining a hypothesis he called Gaia, after the Greek goddess of Earth, that argues that life on Earth is part of a self-regulating system – essentially the planet and all the life on it function as a single organism. The somewhat controversial idea is that life on Earth developed and continues to exist not just because of luck, but because the physical, chemical and biological systems of Earth work together to regulate the planet to maintain that life. Some scientists refer to a “Goldilocks” zone around a star where temperatures are not too hot, not too cold, but just right for life to develop. Lovelock calls that “ridiculous,” insisting that Earth is not within what scientists would consider the Goldilocks zone for our Sun, yet it is teeming with life because of the interaction of the atmosphere and everything else on the planet.

Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, one of the primary proponents of the Gaia hypothesis — or theory, depending on one’s viewpoint — blamed neo-Darwinists for attacking it and explained that it takes time for people to accept a new way of thinking. Quoting Emily Dickinson, she told the audience that “The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.”

The seminar was information- and intellectually-rich. Topics included historical accounts of NASA’s Viking program, the first designed specifically to find life on Mars, and of the ups and downs of astrobiology at NASA, which dipped when people misinterpreted Viking’s findings as proof that there was no life anywhere on Mars, but resurged after the 1996 “Martian meteorite” discovery.

Cultural perspectives on the implications of finding life elsewhere — or not finding it, which would be equally significant — were discussed in a panel that included journalist Marc Kaufman of the Washington Post. He is writing a book on astrobiology and said that in his travels around the world doing research for it he found that people everywhere were fascinated by the search for life. A story he wrote for the Post on the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone of another star was the most read and emailed story on the Post’s website for several days and shared on Facebook more than 7,500 times. Other members of that panel emphasized the need to consider religion and science together when communicating with the public since astrobiology is based on the theory of evolution. Connie Bertka of the Carnegie Institution pointed out that 42% of the U.S. population does not accept evolution and that number has been unchanged for 50 years.

But the question that kept returning throughout the day is “What is life?” Nobelist Baruch Bloomberg, who was the first director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, argued that it is not that we are searching for life, we are testing the hypothesis that there is life elsewhere and searching for the data to prove the hypothesis. “How do you know if something’s alive,” he mused. “We have characteristics and if enough of them are satisfied then people say ‘that’s life.’ It is hard to know how much data you need, but when it happens, you know it.”

At a Congressional Robotics Caucus briefing held today, presenters discussed innovative ways to use robotics not only to solve problems here on Earth, but also to transform the way humans explore the Solar System and beyond.

Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA), co-chair of the caucus, mentioned yesterday’s vote on the NASA Authorization bill and said he anticipates robotics to be a “key component” in the agency’s future. He also congratulated the NASA-supported Carlton J. Kell High School Robotics Team, which has used the knowledge gained through the FIRST Robotics Competition to solve real-world problems. Team members talked about their designs, including an oil-recovery and capture robot called Orca, and other initiatives they are involved with to increase science literary and put science, technology, engineering, animation, and mathematics skills (or STEAM) at the service of the community.

But participants also talked about the role of robotics beyond Earth. Dr. Terry Fong, Director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center, discussed three ways in which robotics can help “reinvent” planetary exploration:

• Robots for human exploration
• Advances in neo-geography
• Participatory Exploration

Questioning the assumption that robotic and human exploration should be separate affairs, Dr. Fong described ways in which robotic exploration can enhance and complement human exploration – before, during, and after crew involvement in the mission. He described how robots, like NASA Ames’ K10 robot, could be remotely operated to perform reconnaissance and scouting to support a human expedition on a planetary surface and deliver detailed terrain data before the crew arrived at a specific location to be explored. This would help the astronauts prepare for what they will encounter and save their time by pre-identifying locations for them to explore. Although robotic probes perform a similar function in orbit, robots that can land and actually move in the terrain can provide richer data. The idea is to coordinate both human and robotic components at every stage of a mission so that robots take care of crucial tasks that are “unproductive” for humans to perform. An issue still to be resolved is the limited amount of data that can be transmitted back to Earth. For the time being, “we just never have enough bandwidth,” said Dr. Fong.

Both neo-geography and participatory exploration refer to advances in robotics to increase public involvement. Neo-geography involves modern mapping tools placed at the hands of users and allowing them to “explore from [their] own desktop” detailed, interactive, explorable maps. In a similar fashion, robotics can enhance participatory exploration, which thrives on public input and collaboration in space exploration. Using robots like Gigapan – which takes interactive gigapixel panorama images – the public can help NASA decide which locations to focus on in future missions. These and other initiatives, Dr. Fong said, would provide an “opportunity to reinvent the way we do exploration.”

David Gump, President of Astrobiotic Technology, Inc., talked about another innovation in exploration: bringing in the private sector. With their participation in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (in which participants must land a spacecraft on the Moon, travel 500 meters, and send video back to Earth), Gump and his team hope to increase public interest and involvement in lunar exploration through a number of initiatives including live Web participation and the first “sociable” robot, able to “tweet” and update its Facebook account to let the public follow it along on its mission.

Analysis from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) topographic map of the Moon featured in the most recent issue of Science (subscription required) points to the Moon’s “complex, turbulent youth,” according to a NASA press release.

Using new data from the LRO’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter and the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment Instrument, scientists have been studying the geologic processes that formed the lunar surface and the history of numerous meteoric impacts that considerably transformed the landscape. According to the release, “a rich record of craters is preserved on the Moon,” data which is hoped will help researchers uncover the implications of such early activity on the Earth and other bodies in the Solar System.

This milestone marks completion of the spacecraft’s one-year exploration mission and its transition to a science phase, expected to last from two to four more years. Program management has now been moved from NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate to the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.