The origin of life is a longstanding enigma that fascinates scientists and the general public alike. Scientific efforts have yielded a significant amount of data over the last 100 y following a fundamental cornerstone publication: Proiskhozhozhdenie Zhizny (Origin of Life) by Alexander Ivanovich Oparin (1). Currently, the formamide-based synthesis of biomolecules catalyzed or initiated by extra...

Introduction: The Antarctic Meteorite Program has returned over 16,000 meteorites from the ice sheets of the Antarctic. This more than doubles the number of preexisting meteorite collection and adds important and rare specimens to the assemblage. The CM carbonaceous chondrites are of particular interest because of their high organic component. The Antarctic carbonaceous chondrites provide a lar...

The biology of metal transforming microorganisms is of a fundamental and applied importance for our understanding of past and present biogeochemical processes on Earth and in the Universe. The extreme thermoacidophile Metallosphaera sedula is a metal mobilizing archaeon, which thrives in hot acid environments (optimal growth at 74°C and pH 2.0) and utilizes energy from the oxidation of reduced ...

Morphological, compositional, and biological evidence indicates the presence of numerous well-developed microbial hyphae structures distributed within four different sample splits of the Nakhla meteorite obtained from the British Museum (allocation BM1913,25). By examining depth profiles of the sample splits over time, morphological changes displayed by the structures were documented, as well a...

[1] Meteoric material reaching Earth contains an appreciable percentage of iron, much of which can be oxidized into nanometric-size particles produced by ablation and subsequent condensation in the atmosphere. New measurements of isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) show that magnetic particles of extraterrestrial origin can be distinguished from terrigenous particles based on their smaller ...

A hypothesized extraterrestrial impact in North America at ∼12,900 calendar years BP (12.9 ka) has been proposed as the cause of Younger Dryas climate changes, terminal Pleistocene mammalian extinctions, and a supposed “termination” of the Clovis archaeological culture. In regard to the latter, however, an examination of archaeological, geochronological, and stratigraphic evidence fails to prov...

This paper presents the on-going development for the Supvis-Justin experiment lead by DLR, together with ESA, planned for 2016. It is part of the ESA initiated Meteron telerobotics experiment suite aimed to study different forms of telerobotics solutions for space applications. Supvis-Justin studies the user interface design, and supervised autonomy aspects of telerobotics, as well as teleopera...