The University of Colorado on Tuesday was awarded a $7 million NASA grant to study the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.
The team, led by geological sciences professor Alexis Templeton, will research “rock-powered life.”
Rocky planets store enormous amounts of chemical energy that, when released through the interaction of rocks and water, can power living systems on Earth as well as on other planets such as Mars, said Templeton, the study’s principal investigator.
Scientists believe that habitable or potentially inhabited environments may exist in the subsurface of Mars as well as the interiors of Europa and Ganymede — two of Jupiter’s moons — and Triton, a moon of Neptune, said Thomas McCollom, a CU research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. He is one of four co-investigators on the effort.
Rather than photosynthesis, the researchers believe a number of life forms in the solar system and perhaps beyond may be powered by “chemosynthesis,” a process that does not require sunlight, McCollom said.
“I’m pleasantly surprised that we were selected, in part because it was such a tough competition,” he said.
The team will tackle the project from several angles, according to CU research associate Lisa Mayhew, another co-investigator. She said field sites on land and sea will be used as test beds to determine the habitability of rock-powered systems; laboratory experiments will investigate how the water-rock reactions occur in the presence and absence of life; and the philosophical definition of what constitutes life will also be explored.
