Australia's first NASA-affiliated Centre for Astrobiology launched
at Macquarie
Last month at a gathering of some of the region's most eminent
scientists, Macquarie University Vice Chancellor, Professor Di Yerbury,
launched the Australian Centre for Astrobiology. The Centre, to
be based at Macquarie, is Australia's first and one of just three
worldwide to be granted affiliate membership of NASA's Astrobiology
Institute.
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Director
of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, Professor Malcolm
Walter
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Macquarie University's Professor Malcolm Walter, whose area of
expertise is the microbial palaeobiology of Earth and the search
for life on Mars, is the Director of the new Centre which will conduct
research into all aspects of life in the Universe including evidence
of early life on Earth.
Walter believes that studying how life evolved on Earth can help
scientists predict the occurrence of life elsewhere in the Universe.
"Three billion years ago Earth and Mars had similar surface environments.
On the basis of what is known about the early Earth, it is thought
that similar forms of life could have populated Mars at that time,"
Walter explains. "Much of the search for life on Mars is actually
happening here on Earth."
Walter and his research team recently announced (in the international
scientific journal Nature) their discovery of well preserved
examples of 1.5 billion-year-old plankton, which has provided the
planet's oldest evidence for algae preserved as fossil cells.
The discovery is also believed to represent an early stage in the
rise of biodiversity. "Such life forms are the ancestors of all
complex plants and animals alive on Earth today," he says.
This research is part of Walter's broader study of the palaeobiology
of a region of the Northern Territory that includes ancient hot
spring deposits that he is studying partly as an analogue for equivalent
places on Mars.
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Mt
Painter, Flinders Ranges, South Australia - the largest known
ancient hydrothermal system on Earth and the site of several
of the current and planned research projects of Macquarie's
Astrobiology Centre
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The field of astrobiology began in 1996 when NASA scientists announced
that they had discovered evidence of past life on Mars in a small
Martian rock found in Antarctica in 1984. One of those scientists,
Dr Everett Gibson Jr, attended the launch of Australia's new Centre
and remained at Macquarie University to present a paper on this
discovery at the region's first Astrobiology Workshop, held over
the following two days.
Other Workshop presenters included NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
scientist, Dr Victoria Meadows, who delivered the latest news on
the search for, and discovery of, new planets around other stars,
and Dr Jeremy Bailey, from the Anglo-Australian Observatory, who
spoke on the origin of the handedness in amino acids and sugars
in all forms of life. Bailey claimed that this phenomenon originated
in areas of star formation in the galaxies.
Walter says that there is developing State and Federal Government
interest in rebuilding space related industries in Australia. "The
Australian Centre for Astrobiology now has an opportunity to contribute
to that process," he says.
Story by Kathy Vozella
Photos by Michelle Wilson
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