Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Field Reports: Lake Untersee, Antarctica (Gigapixel panorama) “Those early ecosystems resulted in the formation of luxuriant microbial mats with a variety of morphologies which are seen today in the stromatolitic fossil record scattered around the globe. Until recently, there have been no reports of modern microorganisms forming such structures, but in 2008 our research team discovered large conical stromatolites forming beneath the thick perennial ice of Lake […]

A Post-Mission Conversation With NASA NEEMO Aquanaut Steve Squyres “Cowing: Let’s go back to what we were talking about several weeks ago before you began your NEEMO mission – the idea that being there – and doing it as – opposed to intellectualizing things … Squyres: … yea, it is really different when you actually have to do it!”

NASA May Enlist Astronauts, Celebrities to Entertain Trapped Chile Miners “The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration may help organize astronauts and celebrities to entertain 33 miners trapped in a mine in Chile during a rescue that may take as much as four months. The miners, who have been trapped in the San Jose underground mine in the Atacama Desert for a record 26 days, have already received messages of […]

Diving Through A Microbial Landscape in Lake Untersee, Antarctica “There’s not much in the ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys to interest anglers looking to land the big one. But for scientists who want to know more about some of Earth’s earliest organisms — and, by extension, to recognize what life may look like on other planets — those unique ecosystems represent a useful portal to the past. Dale […]