8.2. NASA: A Platform for Inter-Disciplinary Science

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來自 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 的課程

Emergence of Life

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Emergence of Life

58 個評分

How did life emerge on Earth? How have life and Earth co-evolved through geological time? Is life elsewhere in the universe? Take a look through the 4-billion-year history of life on Earth through the lens of the modern Tree of Life! This course will evaluate the entire history of life on Earth within the context of our cutting-edge understanding of the Tree of Life. This includes the pioneering work of Professor Carl Woese on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus which revolutionized our understanding with a new "Tree of Life." Other themes include: -Reconnaissance of ancient primordial life before the first cell evolved -The entire ~4-billion-year development of single- and multi-celled life through the lens of the Tree of Life -The influence of Earth system processes (meteor impacts, volcanoes, ice sheets) on shaping and structuring the Tree of Life This synthesis emphasizes the universality of the emergence of life as a prelude for the search for extraterrestrial life.

從本節課中

Week 8 - Astrobiology and the Search for Life in the Cosmos

No matter where you are or what you believe, sometime in your life you will look up into the sky and ask: What is out there? Where are we going? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? This course is dedicated to searching for answers to these questions. The fundamental concepts of life and habitable environments, established upon the modern synthesis of the Tree of Life, will direct us in recognizing biospheres that might be quite different from our own. In the last week of this course, we will look in detail at what the future has in store for space exploration and the search for life in the cosmos.

8.1. NASA Astrobiology: Roadmap to Life in the Universe11:44

8.2. NASA: A Platform for Inter-Disciplinary Science4:57

8.3. Mars Flybys and Orbiters: Getting the Picture8:37

8.4. Mars Rovers: Was the Red Planet Habitable?9:04

8.5. NASA Future Missions9:03

8.6. NASA Institute for Universal Biology8:59

8.7. Think and Wonder…Wonder and Think5:06

8.8. The Emergence of Life: Course Synthesis 6:33

Emergence of Life Outtakes3:58

與講師見面

Bruce W. Fouke, Ph.D.
Director of the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center
Department of Geology, Department of Microbiology, and Institute for Genomic Biology

[MUSIC]

Nasa's history was born of practically.

The soviets were the first one to be able to put together a space program and

actually put a space craft into orbit and they

were the one's that drove our initiative to begin that process ourselves.

The launch of Sputnik in 1957, when that went into orbit, it really triggered and

catalyzed the need within the U.S.

of having this kind of broad-based integrative science type of program.

And then since that time period, it was actually formally founded in 1958.

NASA has been a singularly important opportunity to conduct integrated science.

In fact, the whole idea that to answer some of the fundamental questions we have

about the history of life, the history of the Earth, evolution itself,

what can we predict in terms of global warming and global environmental changes.

That kind of integrated science was really born of that moment

when NASA was put together because there weren't other opportunities.

The scientific fields were put into their categories of physics and chemistry and

economics and what have you, and they weren't talking to each other.

And indeed if you look at the history of Professor Karl here at Illinois,

Karl's capability to get some funding to continue his groundbreaking work,

which actually lead to the development of the three branch tree of life.

That was the only funding agency that would step forward to do such a avant

garde early development and high risk type of a scientific endeavor.

NASA was the only one who would step up to be able to do that.

So NASA itself has been really if you looked at the future of science as

a large balloon with a dark volume inside, the little pinprick of light and

hope has been NASA itself because it opened the door to integrative research.

And then, because of the scale that which NASA operated, the instrumentation

that was needed to launch instruments into space, spacecraft, create the kind

of ground-based telescopes, and radar arrays, and things that we need.

Those require a financial infrastructure that normally the federal government can

get behind.

So at the same time that NASA was formed in response to the Sputnik,

it actually catalyzed this integrated base for

broad base large scale science on a global basis.

The other thing about NASA is that it is the place for the exploration for life on

other planets and it is the place to look towards the solar system as the future.

And, as comfortable as we all are, given that most of us are from Earth,

the future at some point is going to be on other planets and so NASA is that

vehicle to look towards the stars and be able to drive science in that direction.

One of the things that NASA is dedicated to, of course, is the search for

life throughout the solar system.

And that one level, that search for life is the fall of the water.

Without H2O, life we know it is not capable of existence.

And so NASA's integrative approach using the astrobiology roadmap to

define where to look for

life throughout the universe is a really fundamentally sound scientifically and

has created a scientific framework with which to move forward with this.

So ongoing programs now that we have Mars, with multiple landings now and the early

planning and preparation stages now to actually put people on Mars is underway.

Titan and Europa are both other highly desirable,

potentially habitable environments,

in large part because of the presence of water on those planetary bodies.

So, the thing that's extremely exciting is to be able to have this exploration based

approach to the solar system.

Have that driven by sound scientific analysis, and testing, and

hypothesis development and then have that all couched within this idea that

evolution needs to be brought into the framework of understanding what we see.

So, if we land on Mars and we get a rock sample, and we have some water, and

we have a contextual condition there in which to make interpretations or

the search for life.

Then, that's going to be broadly based in a context of evolution itself, and, again,

NASA is one of the few places where that evolutionary context is brought directly

to bear at the very beginning of the endeavor.

[MUSIC].

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