Our research programmes are designed to attack key aspects of these four areas. On the astronomical and astrophysical side of this question, the search for extrasolar planets has opened up new and unexpected aspects of planetary systems. Jovian mass planets orbit very close to their central stars, some interior to the orbit of Mercury in our solar system. This has generated one of the most active and exciting research efforts in modern astronomy. If such massive planets can be found so close to their central stars - where are the terrestrial type of planets such as the Earth and Mars? Will these exosolar systems robustly show the existence of terrestrial planets, or will these turn out to be rare? At the same time, the disks of gas out of which stars and their planetary systems form are now routinely observed around young stars of solar type mass. Recently, such disks have even been observed around very low mass (brown dwarf) stars that are only a few percent of the mass of the Sun, as well as around very massive stars. Understanding how planetary systems form, and how terrestrial planets might appear in them is one of the most important aspects of modern astronomy. Indeed, the Long Range Plan (LRP) for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Canada (Pudritz was chair of the panel and principal author of the report), ranked the study of planetary formation as one of the nations top goals in astronomy. The ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) telescope being constructed in Chile in which Canada plays a very significant role, as well as the newly created Thirty Meter Telescope project in which Canada is in a 25% partnership, are respectively, the highest priority major facility and highest priority for construction of the next major facility, in Canada's LRP. Both of these projects have, as key elements of their scientific plans, the study of protostellar disks and planetary formation. The search for life in these systems is just a step away.

On the biological side, the discovery of extremophiles - microorganisms adapted to extreme conditions on the Earth - has provided tremendous momentum to the search for life. Given the existence of living things in hydrothermal vents, the Arctic seas, permafrost and ice, as well as deep subsurface ( 1 - 5 km) regions of the Earth, there is now every scientific reason to think that life may be found in places such as Mars and Europa. The enormous effort put into Martian exploration has now made it clear that abundant water in the forms of seas and lakes existed on Mars, and that the permafrost layers there might therefore be an abode for current life. At the same time, life that is found under the polar ice on the Earth makes it plausible that microorganisms could be found in the ice-covered ocean of Europa.

Finally, biologists now have the direct tool to understand perhaps the very origins of life itself through the use of gene sequencing - which has powered the genomics revolution. The astonishing rate at which gene sequences from a wide variety of organisms are being determined (over 250 published complete prokaryotic genomes) makes it possible to develop increasingly accurate models for tree of life, and thereby derive insights into the characteristics of the earliest life forms that developed on the Earth. This, together with the amino acids that are most common in the proteins of these earliest organisms, in turn give a tentative insight into the nature of the pre-biotic soup out of which the earliest organisms developed. The presence of key organic molecules such as amino acids and membrane-forming amphiphiles in meteorites such as the famous Murchison's meteorite make it increasingly likely that the building blocks of life were formed by the organic chemistry that occurs in interstellar, star forming clouds and protostellar disks.

Overview of OI research programme in astrobiology

We highlight, in point form, our proposed research programmes (documented below) in 3 basic and related directions:

(1) Conditions for Life
The nature and formation of planetary systems; the timing and origin of habitable conditions (water, biomolecules, energy sources) on planets and moons; the origin of water, organic molecules, and amino acids that characterize pre-biotic conditions. People: M. Bernstein (NASA Ames: laboratory studies of amino acid and organic molecule formation on dust grains), J. Di Francesco (observations of interstellar biomolecules), J. Fiege (modeling Europa), R. Jayawardhana (observational search for planets), R. Pudritz (disk theory, planet formation theory and simulations, astrochemistry), J. Wadsley (planetesimal interactions, 3D protoplanetary simulations).

(2) Origins of Life
Pre-biotic conditions, complexity and autocatalytic sets, habitats and energetics of early life, nature of the first cells. People: P. Higgs (bioinformatics, phylogenetics), S. Kauffman (complexity, pre-biotic states), C. McKay (NASA Ames; search for life on Mars), G. Slater (geochemistry, biomolecules in subsurface environments).

(3) Extremophiles
Nature of terrestrial microbial life in extreme conditions, Mars analogue studies, microbial life in Arctic and Antarctic conditions. People: R. Gupta (biochemistry, RNA and protein genes in wide variety of micro-organisms), C. McKay (NASA Ames; Arctic and Antarctic microbial life), and L. Rothschild (NASA Ames, extremophiles), J. Stone (computational biology), W. Vincent (polar microbial ecosystems; theme leader of ArcticNet), L. Whyte (chair Astrobiology Working Group, Mars analogue studies).

Click on the links for information about the research of OI co-applicants, members, and collaborators.