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12 Microbial Life in Brines, Evaporites and Saline Sediments: The Search for Life on Mars
When water on a planet begins to evaporate the dissolved minerals become more concentrated, form a brine, eventually precipitating out of solution...
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The Material-Independent Signatures of Life.Forensic Tools of Astrobiology
Biological life is intimately related to the geochemical conditions on Earth and is fit for this planet’s energy flux. It has often been suggested...
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The Early History of Bioenergy
Energy is most commonly defined as the potential to do work. The maintenance of the living state requires a constant flow of energy through the...
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Assembling the Early Puzzle of Life
So far no theory, no approach, no set of formulas, and no blackboard scheme have been found satisfactory in explaining the origin of life. The...
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The Early History of Bio-Information
In a general sense, the information level of a structure equals the minimum number of instructions needed to specify the structure (Orgel 1973). The...
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5 Global Distribution of Subsurface Water Measured by Mars Odyssey
While the presence of water in minerals of the Martian surface has been known for many years and the storage of ground ice in the past and present...
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9 Polar Lakes, Streams, and Springs as Analogs for the Hydrological Cycle on Mars
The extensive fluvial features seen on the surface of Mars attest to the stable flow of water on that planet at some time in the past. However the...
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8 Water Cycle in the Atmosphere and Shallow Subsurface
The global water cycle on Earth constitutes one of the most relevant components of the terrestrial ecosystem. While the vast majority of terrestrial...
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13 Microbiology of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents: Lessons for Mars Exploration
A large proportion of the Earth (70 %) is covered by seas and oceans. Oceanic waters below one kilometre depth constitute the deep-sea, which...
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6 Polar Caps
The permanent polar caps of Mars constitute the largest known reservoirs of H2O on the planet. The permanent caps are distinguished from the seasonal...
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2 Atmospheric Evolution and the History of Water on Mars
The discovery of high concentrations of water-ice just below the Martian surface in polar areas by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has strengthened the...
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10 Ancient and Recent Lakes on Mars
The search for life on Mars is guided by our knowledge of the environments occupied by terrestrial biota. Geology and atmospheric models converge to...
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11 Impact Craters, Water and Microbial Life
Because of the lack of recent plate tectonics, the surface of Mars has abundant, well-preserved impact structures. Impact structures can localize...
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3 Early Life on Earth and Analogies to Mars
One of the prime necessities of life is liquid water [87]. The presence of liquid water on a planet therefore naturally leads to the question of...
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4 Hydrated Minerals on Mars
Hydrated minerals on Mars provide information about the aqueous history of the planet, which is an integral aspect of whether or not Mars was...
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1 The Origins of Martian Water: What We Can Learn from Meteorites
In 1877 telescopic observations of apparent lines on the Martian surface were interpreted by Giovanni Schiaparelli as resembling channels. Others,...
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7 Ground Ice in the Martian Regolith
The long-term existence of extremely cold climate on Mars has led to strong global freezing through upper layers of the planet’s crust that has...
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C Dictionary
Absolute life criteria. Traits that are present in all living systems (Szathmáry 2002) (see Potential life criteria).
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The Origin of Cell Boundaries and Metabolism
The wide gap between the properties of non-living phenomena and the simplest living forms cannot be explained without some intermediate stages...