The effects of near ultraviolet (UV) radiation on water solutions of tyrosine and glycine-tyrosine are investigated using a broadband xenon lamp in the region 200–800 nm. These experiments form a contribution in the laboratory simulation of the solar irradiation on the building blocks of life with regard to the origin of life. Results are presented showing the photodecomposition of tyrosine and glycine-tyrosine, at different concentrations, against UV doses. The analysis of the irradiated solutions is carried out by spectroscopic and analytical techniques. The findings of our laboratory simulations are used to constrain the early stages of the life emerging process.

Astrobiology's goal of promoting interdisciplinary research is an attempt to reverse a trend that began two centuries ago with the formation of the first specialized scientific disciplines. We have examined this era of discipline formation in order to make a comparison with the situation today in astrobiology. Will astrobiology remain interdisciplinary or is it becoming yet another specialty?

As a case study, we have investigated effects on the scientific literature when a specialized community is formed by analyzing the citations within papers published during 1802–1856 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Phil. Trans.), the most important ‘generalist’ journal of its day, and Transactions of the Geological Society of London (Trans. Geol. Soc.), the first important disciplinary journal in the sciences. We find that these two journals rarely cited each other, and papers published in Trans. Geol. Soc. cited fewer interdisciplinary sources than did geology papers in Phil. Trans. After geology had become established as a successful specialized discipline, geologists returned to publishing papers in Phil. Trans., but they wrote in the new, highly specialized style developed in Trans. Geol. Soc. They had succeeded in not only creating a new scientific discipline, but also a new way of doing science with its own modes of research and communication.

A similar citation analysis was applied to papers published over the period 2001–2008 in the contemporary journals Astrobiology and the International Journal of Astrobiology to test the hypothesis that astrobiologists are in the early stages of creating their own specialized community. Although still too early to reliably detect any but the largest trends, there is no evidence yet that astrobiologists are drifting into their own isolated discipline. Instead, to date they appear to remain interdisciplinary.

The Earth is embedded in the solar wind, this ever-streaming extremely tenuous ionized gas emanating from the Sun. It is the geomagnetic field which inhibits the solar wind plasma to directly impinge upon the terrestrial atmosphere. It is also the geomagnetic field which moderates and controls the entry of energetic particles of cosmic and solar origin into the atmosphere. During geomagnetic polarity transitions the terrestrial magnetic field decays down to about 10% of its current value. Also, the magnetic field topology changes from a dipole dominated structure to a multipole dominated topology. What happens to the Earth system during such a polarity transition, that is, during episodes of a weak transition field? Which modifications of the configuration of the terrestrial magnetosphere can be expected? Is there any influence on the atmosphere from the intensified particle bombardment? What are the possible effects on the biosphere? Is a polarity transition another example of a cosmic cataclysm? A review is provided on the current understanding of the problem. A first, illustrating model is also discussed to outline the complexity of any biospheric reaction on polarity transitions.

This study, using the Microscopic Imager (MI) of NASA Rover Exploration Mission's (REM) ‘Opportunity’, aims to explain the origin of laminated sediments lying at Meridiani Planum of Mars, and of the strange spherules, known as blueberries, about which several hypotheses have been formulated. To this purpose, images of the sedimentary textures of layers and fragments captured by REM have been analysed; sediments that NASA has already established as ‘pertinent to water presence’. Our study shows that such laminated sediments and the spherules they contain could be organosedimentary structures, probably produced by microorganisms. The laminated structures are characterized by a sequence of a thin pair of layers, which have the features of skeletal/agglutinated laminae and whose basic constituents are made by a partition of septa and vacuoles radially arranged around a central one. The growth of these supposed organosedimentary masses is based on the ‘built flexibility’ of such a basal element; it may be a coalescing microfossil formed by progressive film accretion (calcimicrobe), in a variety of geometrical gross forms, such as a repeated couplet sequence of laminae or domal mass and large composite polycentric spherule, both in elevation. The acquired structural and textural data seem to be consistent with the existence of life on Mars and could explain an origin of sediments at Meridiani Planum similar to that of terrestrial stromatolites. The Martian deposits, probably produced by cyanobacterial activity, and the embedded blueberries could represent a recurrent and multiform product of colonies with sheath forms, resembling in shape those of the fossil genus Archaeosphaeroides (stromatolites of Fig Tree, South Africa).

Cloud formation modelling has entered astrophysics as a new field of research for planetary and brown dwarf atmospheres. Clouds are a chemically and physically very active component of an atmosphere since they determine the remaining gas phase and change the object's albedo depending on their material composition. The grains can also provide a surface where the molecular constituents for life can be physisorbed for possible pre-biotic evolution. This paper summarizes our model for the kinetic formation of dirty dust grains which make up the atmospheric clouds of extraterrestrial giant gas planets. We include seed formation, surface growth and evaporation, the gravitational settling that influences the dust formation, element depletion that determines the remaining gas phase abundances, and convective overshooting that is needed for a dust model to be applicable to hydrostatic atmosphere simulations. We demonstrate the evolution of the material composition of the cloud itself and the distribution of the grain sizes in the cloud layer, exemplary for a giant gas planet parameter combinations (Teff, log g). In general, substellar clouds are composed of small, dirty grains with a high silicate content at the cloud deck. They grow in size and gradually purify to iron/corundum grains when they move into denser and hotter atmospheric regions. Comparing these results with experimental data from condensation experiments leads to the conclusion that cloud grains that gravitationally settle in the atmosphere of a giant planet can easily change their lattice structure from the disordered amorphous state they are forming in, into the ordered lattice of a crystal.

All known life requires phosphorus (P) in the form of inorganic phosphate (PO43− or Pi) and phosphate-containing organic molecules. Pi serves as the backbone of the nucleic acids that constitute genetic material and as the major repository of chemical energy for metabolism in polyphosphate bonds. Arsenic (As) lies directly below P on the periodic table and so the two elements share many chemical properties, although their chemistries are sufficiently dissimilar that As cannot directly replace P in modern biochemistry. Arsenic is toxic because As and P are similar enough that organisms attempt this substitution. We hypothesize that ancient biochemical systems, analogous to but distinct from those known today, could have utilized arsenate in the equivalent biological role as phosphate. Organisms utilizing such ‘weird life’ biochemical pathways may have supported a ‘shadow biosphere’ at the time of the origin and early evolution of life on Earth or on other planets. Such organisms may even persist on Earth today, undetected, in unusual niches.

Infrared spectroscopic observations of planetary nebulae and proto-planetary nebulae have shown that complex organic compounds are synthesized in these objects over periods as short as a thousand years. These compounds are ejected into the interstellar medium and spread throughout the Galaxy. Evidence from meteorites has shown that these stellar grains have reached the Solar System, and may have showered the Earth during the heavy bombardment stage of the Early Earth. In this paper, we discuss the chemical structure of stellar organic grains and compare them to the organic matter found in meteorites, comets, asteroids, planetary satellites, and interplanetary particles. The possibility that the early Solar System was chemically enriched by organic compounds ejected from distant stars is presented.

Determining the thermal history of the cometary grains captured by the Stardust mission presents a difficult problem. We consider two simplified models for the deceleration of hypervelocity particles captured in aerogel; both models assume a velocity squared drag force. The first model assumes that the mass of the particle remains constant during capture and the second that mass is lost due to ablation of the particle through interactions with the aerogel. It is found that the constant mass model adequately reproduces the track lengths, found from experiments by Hörz et al. in 2008, that impacted aluminium oxide spheres into aerogel at hypervelocities ~6 km s−1.

Deceleration in aerogel heats volatile particles such as organic ices to high temperatures greater than 1,000 K, for durations of ~1 μs: more than sufficient to completely ablate the particle. Refractory particles also experience significant heating greater than 2500 K, greater than the particle's melting point, over similar timescales. This suggests that the fragments recovered to Earth by the Stardust mission were considerably altered by hypersonic capture by aerogel, and so limits the amount of information that can be obtained regarding the formation of mineral and organic particles within Kuiper Belt comets.

Liquid water in comets, once considered impossible, now appears to be almost certain. New evidence has come from the discovery of clay minerals in comet Tempel 1, which compliments the indirect evidence in aqueous alteration of carbonaceous chondrites. Infrared spectral indication of clay is confirmed by modelling data in the 8–40 μm and 8–12 μm wavebands on the basis of mixtures of clays and organics. Radiogenic heating producing liquid water cores in freshly formed comets appears more likely on current evidence for solar system formation. A second possibility investigated here is transient melting in comets in the inner solar system, where thin crusts of asphalt-like material, formed due to solar processing and becoming hot in the daytime, can cause melting of sub-surface icy material a few centimetres deep. Supposing comets were seeded with microbes at the time of their formation from pre-solar material, there would be plenty of time for exponential amplification and evolution within the liquid interior and in the transient ponds or lakes formed as the outer layers are stripped away via sublimation.

It has long been assumed that the planet Jupiter acts as a giant shield, significantly lowering the impact rate of minor bodies upon the Earth, and thus enabling the development and evolution of life in a collisional environment which is not overly hostile. In other words, it is thought that, thanks to Jupiter, mass extinctions have been sufficiently infrequent that the biosphere has been able to diversify and prosper. However, in the past, little work has been carried out to examine the validity of this idea. In the second of a series of papers, we examine the degree to which the impact risk resulting from objects on Centaur-like orbits is affected by the presence of a giant planet, in an attempt to fully understand the impact regime under which life on Earth has developed. The Centaurs are a population of ice-rich bodies which move on dynamically unstable orbits in the outer Solar system. The largest Centaurs known are several hundred kilometres in diameter, and it is certain that a great number of kilometre or sub-kilometre sized Centaurs still await discovery. These objects move on orbits which bring them closer to the Sun than Neptune, although they remain beyond the orbit of Jupiter at all times, and have their origins in the vast reservoir of debris known as the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt that extends beyond Neptune. Over time, the giant planets perturb the Centaurs, sending a significant fraction into the inner Solar System where they become visible as short-period comets. In this work, we obtain results which show that the presence of a giant planet can act to significantly change the impact rate of short-period comets on the Earth, and that such planets often actually increase the impact flux greatly over that which would be expected were a giant planet not present.

Hypervelocity impacts (HVIs) where organic-bearing ice constitutes the target material are important in several aspects of planetary and space science: (1) sampling of planetary surfaces using a hypervelocity projectile to impact the surface and eject surface materials for measurement or collection by a spacecraft; (2) the transfer of organic material between planetary bodies; and (3) providing energy for chemical processes involving surface materials. While small organic molecules (~6 carbon atoms), if present in surface materials, will likely be present in HVI-ejecta, uncertainty remains for larger organic molecules. It is the larger molecular weight compounds which could constitute direct evidence of life, and thus their survival within an HVI-ejecta plume is of key importance when evaluating strategies for life detection on icy bodies. It is not currently known what large organic molecules, and in what concentrations, may be present on icy bodies in the Solar System, but it is highly likely some will be more chemically stable during a HVI than others. Accordingly, in this study we examined a range of chemicals (β,β carotene, stearic acid and anthracene) with molecular weights between 178 and 536 daltons, and three different types of chemical structure. The compounds were solvated in a dimethylsulfoxide/water mixture and frozen. The frozen targets were impacted with steel spheres 1 and 1.5 mm in diameter at velocities of about 4.9 km s−1. Ice ejected during the impact was collected and underwent chemical analysis. The most labile compound (β,β carotene) was only detected (in small amounts) in the ejecta (and only that emitted at the lowest angles of ejection), although the other compounds were present in larger quantities and at a range of ejection angles. A concentration gradient was observed within the ejecta as a function of angle of ejection. This was not the same for both stearic acid and anthracene: the greatest concentrations of stearic acid were found at shallow angles of ejection whereas anthracene was most abundant at both intermediate and large angles of ejection, implying an inverted concentration gradient. These observations may indicate that organic compounds are variably altered and destroyed during a HVI with ice and that the ejecta plume does not sample the original materials equally at all angles of ejection. Future work is planned and will evaluate fractional survival for a greater range of compound types, impact materials and velocities.

The so-called vegetation red-edge (VRE), a sharp increase in the reflectance around 700 nm, is a characteristic of vegetation spectra, and can therefore be used as a biomarker if it can be detected in an unresolved extrasolar Earth-like planet integrated reflectance spectrum. Here, we investigate the potential for the detection of vegetation spectra during the last Quaternary climatic extrema, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Holocene optimum, for which past climatic simulations have been made. By testing the VRE detectability during these extrema, when Earth's climate and biomes maps were different from today, we are able to test the vegetation detectability on a terrestrial planet different from our modern Earth. Data from the Biome3.5 model have been associated to visible Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) spectra for each biome and cloud cover to derive Earth's integrated spectra for given Earth phases and observer positions. The VRE is then measured. Results show that the vegetation remains detectable during the last climatic extrema. Compared to the current Earth, the Holocene optimum, with a greener Sahara, slightly increases the mean VRE on one hand, while on the other hand, the large ice cap over the northern hemisphere during the LGM decreases vegetation detectability. We finally discuss the detectability of the VRE in the context of recently proposed space missions.

Exposure to cosmic rays may have both a direct and indirect effect on Earth's organisms. The radiation may lead to higher rates of genetic mutations in organisms, or interfere with their ability to repair DNA damage, potentially leading to diseases such as cancer. Increased cloud cover, which may cool the planet by blocking out more of the Sun's rays, is also associated with cosmic rays. They also interact with molecules in the atmosphere to create nitrogen oxide, a gas that eats away at our planet's ozone layer, which protects us from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. On the ground, humans are protected from cosmic particles by the planet's atmosphere.

In this paper we give estimated results of wavelet analysis from solar modulation and cosmic ray data incorporated in time-dependent cosmic ray variation. Since solar activity can be described as a non-linear chaotic dynamic system, methods such as neural networks and wavelet methods should be very suitable analytical tools. Thus we have computed our results using Morlet wavelets. Many have used wavelet techniques for studying solar activity. Here we have analysed and reconstructed cosmic ray variation, and we have better depicted periods or harmonics other than the 11-year solar modulation cycles.

With the discovery of Na-sulphate minerals on Mars and Europa, recent studies using these minerals have focused on their ability to assist in the detection of bio/organic signatures. This study further investigates the ability of thenardite (Na2SO4) to effectively facilitate the ionization and identification of aromatic amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan) using a technique called geomatrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization in conjunction with a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry. This technique is based on the ability of a mineral host to facilitate desorption and ionization of bio/organic molecules for detection. Spectra obtained from each aromatic amino acid alone and in combination with thenardite show differences in ionization mechanism and fragmentation patterns. These differences are due to chemical and structural differences between the aromatic side chains of their respective amino acid. Tyrosine and tryptophan when combined with thenardite were observed to undergo cation-attachment ([M+Na]+), due to the high alkali ion affinity of their aromatic side chains. In addition, substitution of the carboxyl group hydrogen by sodium led to formation of [M-H+Na]Na+ peaks. In contrast, phenylalanine mixed with thenardite showed no evidence of Na+ attachment. Understanding how co-deposition of amino acids with thenardite can affect the observed mass spectra is important for future exploration missions that are likely to use laser desorption mass spectrometry to search for bio/organic compounds in extraterrestrial environments.

Viruses are the dominant form of genetically reproducing entities on Earth. Yet, viruses are mostly neglected in the context of astrobiology due to their non-living nature. In this discussion it is considered whether viruses are likely to be transferred within bacterial endospores to other planetary bodies through lithopanspermia. Interestingly, it seems possible that ecosystems of panspermial origin might yield biospheres in which viruses are absent. The evolutionary pathway of life in these systems might differ significantly from the path observed on Earth. We hypothesize that the difference in the two potential ways for the emergence of life, those being panspermial or local origin, on any certain planet could be clarified by analyzing the diversity of virosphere on the planet. The use of viruses as putative biomarkers is also discussed and studied.

The mineral schreibersite, (Fe,Ni)3P, a ubiquitous component of iron meteorites, is known to undergo anoxic hydrolytic modification to afford a range of phosphorus oxyacids. H-phosphonic acid (H3PO3) is the principal hydrolytic product under hydrothermal conditions, as confirmed here by 31P-NMR spectroscopic studies on shavings of the Seymchan pallasite (Magadan, Russia, 1967), but in the presence of photochemical irradiation a more reduced derivative, H-phosphinic (H3PO2) acid, dominates. The significance of such lower oxidation state oxyacids of phosphorus to prebiotic chemistry upon the early Earth lies with the facts that such forms of phosphorus are considerably more soluble and chemically reactive than orthophosphate, the commonly found form of phosphorus on Earth, thus allowing nature a mechanism to circumvent the so-called Phosphate Problem.

This paper describes the Galvanic corrosion of Fe3P, a hydrolytic modification pathway for schreibersite, leading again to H-phosphinic acid as the key P-containing product. We envisage this pathway to be highly significant within a meteoritic context as iron meteorites are polymetallic composites in which dissimilar metals, with different electrochemical potentials, are connected by an electrically conducting matrix. In the presence of a suitable electrolyte medium, i.e., salt water, galvanic corrosion can take place. In addition to model electrochemical studies, we also report the first application of the Kelvin technique to map surface potentials of a meteorite sample that allows the electrochemical differentiation of schreibersite inclusions within an Fe:Ni matrix. Such experiments, coupled with thermodynamic calculations, may allow us to better understand the chemical redox behaviour of meteoritic components with early Earth environments.

There is no doubt that stability studies are of great importance in the fascinating research of extrasolar planetary systems. Even if most of the more than 300 extrasolar planets orbit their host stars as single giant planet and build simple two-body systems, we should not exclude the possibility that these systems could host other (small) planets that have not yet been detected due to obsevational limits. Another aspect to carry out stability studies is the growing interest in the search for extraterrestrial life in the universe. The long-term stability of a planetary system is one of the basic requirements for the evolution of life on a terrestrial planet. In this paper the dynamical behaviour of Earth-like planets will be discussed in single-star single-giant-planet systems, multi-planet systems and binary systems.

Life on Earth is one of the outcomes of the formation and evolution of our solar system and has adapted to every explored environment on planet Earth. Recent discoveries have shown that life can exist in extreme environments, such as hydrothermal vents, in deserts and in ice lakes in Antarctica. These findings challenge the definition of the ‘planetary habitable zone’. The objective of future international planetary exploration programmes is to implement a long-term plan for the robotic and human exploration of solar system bodies. Mars has been a central object of interest in the context of extraterrestrial life. The search for extinct or extant life on Mars is one of the main goals of space missions to the Red Planet during the next decade. In this paper we describe the investigation of the physical and chemical properties of Mars soil analogues collected in arid deserts. We measure the pH, redox potential and ion concentrations, as well as carbon and amino acid abundances of soils collected from the Atacama desert (Chile and Peru) and the Salten Skov sediment from Denmark. The samples show large differences in their measured properties, even when taken only several meters apart. A desert sample and the Salten Skov sediment were exposed to a simulated Mars environment to test the stability of amino acids in the soils. The presented laboratory and field studies provide limits to exobiological models, evidence on the effects of subsurface mineral matrices, support current and planned space missions and address planetary protection issues.