New NASA coalition to lead search for life on distant worlds

A new NASA initiative is embracing a team approach to the quest for life on planets around other stars.

Professor Steve Desch is principal investigator of an Arizona State University -centered team that is one of 16 teams funded by a new NASA research coordination network, the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science. The team will focus on understanding the geochemical cycles on exoplanets with different chemical compositions.

NASA's new network is part of its Astrobiology program. NExSS includes planetary scientists, astrophysicists and heliophysicists who will carry out research to help NASA define future space missions, determine target selection and craft observing strategies, to aid in the characterization of exoplanets and the search for life on them.

Just as the Kepler mission found thousands of exoplanets that transit their host stars (pass between us and the star), NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will be launched in 2017 with the hopes of discovering thousands more among the closest stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in 2018, will measure the infrared spectrum of starlight that passes through the atmospheres of some of these transiting exoplanets, discerning what gases are present.

To understand the geochemical cycles on exoplanets with compositions different from Earth's, the team will pursue a multifaceted approach combining astronomical observations, astrophysical and geochemical modeling, and geophysical and geochemical laboratory experiments.

They will also conduct biological field studies to better understand how the methane cycle works on Earth, and possibly elsewhere.