Search

Archives

New book on ‘Astrobiology: Understanding Life in the Universe’

Astrobiology: Understanding Life in the Universe is an introductory text which explores the structure of living things, the formation of the elements for life in the Universe, the biological and geological history of the Earth and the habitability of other planets in our own Solar System and beyond. The book is designed to convey some of the major conceptual foundations in astrobiology that cut across a diversity of traditional fields including chemistry, biology, geosciences, physics and astronomy. It can be used to complement existing courses in these fields or as a stand–alone text for astrobiology courses.

Joshua Krissansen-Totton

Joshua Krissansen-Totton

When I was in primary school, I remember pouring through numerous space factoid books – the kind that have a colorful page and a “Did you know?!?” box for each of the (then) nine planets. When I turned the page after Pluto, I would always be slightly disappointed because there were no more planets to learn about. Surely – my 7-year-old self reasoned – there are billions of stars out there, and so there must be billions of other planets too. I wanted to see colorful pictures and read interesting facts for all those other planets! Now, nearly two decades later – through some combination of wonderful teachers, hard work, and serendipity – I am finally finding out about all those other planets.

Mass extinctions update

Mutant Silurian plankton indicate oceanic anoxia spread and metals poisoning in the sea … 420 million years ago. Not scifi but real life research pinpointing onset of global extinctions. Listen to radio interview of Professor Kathleen A. Campbell discussing these new research findings on Radio NZ’s Checkpoint programme.

Finding life on Mars with SOLID

The Icebreaker Life mission – which will search for life on Mars – is due for review this September, 2015. If successful, Icebreaker Life might fly to Mars in 2021. I hope that Icebreaker will make it to Mars and make grand discoveries.

What do we know? Recent planetary exploration brings a flurry of results:

The last few months have been remarkable for planetary exploration. We have found a planet about twice the size of earth in the habitable zone of a star about the same size as our sun, and we have had space vehicles gather information of Ceres and Pluto, neither of which were significantly better than blobs in our best telescopes. Finally, there was a landing on a comet. From these, we have gathered a lot of data, but it is interesting to reflect on what extra we know.

Professor Kathy Campbell

Professor Kathleen A. Campbell, School of Environment, The University of Auckland The interaction of ancient organisms with their surrounding environments is the broad theme of Kathleen’s research interests as a geologist and astrobiologist. She is particularly intrigued by crustal fluid-sediment-organism interactions leaving behind signatures of “extreme environments” in the geologic record. They are used by scientists as analogs […]

2016-07 Astrobiology Australasia Meeting in July 10-12 Perth

The next Astrobiology Australasia Meeting to be held from 10 – 12 July 2016 in Perth, Western Australia. The venue for our meeting is Curtin University. This meeting will focus on the origin and evolution of life in the Universe, and space exploration. A call for abstracts will be issued shortly. The meeting will consist of both Oral and Poster presentations.

THE ASTROPHYSICS OF PLANETARY HABITABILITY Conference

First Announcement THE ASTROPHYSICS OF PLANETARY HABITABILITY Conference in Vienna, Austria, February 8 – 12, 2016 http://habitability.univie.ac.at Dear colleagues, we are pleased to announce a five day conference on “The Astrophysics of Planetary Habitability”, to be held at the University of Vienna, Austria, from February 8-12, 2016.