A NASA Astrobiology Institute-funded study led by Chris Dupont of the J. Craig Venter Institute indicates that environmental availability of trace elements over Earth’s history influenced the selection of elements […]
Astrochemistry
Posted inAstrochemistry
Most Comets Not From This Solar System
Many of the most well known comets, including Halley, Hale-Bopp and, most recently, McNaught, may have been born in orbit around other stars, according to a new theory by an […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Education and Outreach
Post-doctoral Researcher Position in Cosmochemistry, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Applications are invited for a Post-doctoral Research fellowship in Cosmochemistry. The successful applicant will join an active research program that investigates a wide variety of topics, including: 1) the chronology […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Icy Worlds, Missions & Hardware, Planetary Protection & Biosafety, Sample Return
3/29 NAI Director’s Seminar: Don Brownlee, "Comets and the Early Solar System – Results from the Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission"
Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission” Join us for the next NAI Director’s Seminar! Date/Time: Monday, March 29, 2010 11:00AM PacificSpeaker: Don Brownlee (University of Washington), PI of Stardust MissionTitle: “Comets […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Conferences and Meetings, Origin & Evolution of Life
NAI "Workshop Without Walls": The Organic Continuum from the ISM to the Early SolarSystem
TO: NAI Newsletter distribution listFROM: George Cody (NAI CIW team) and Douglas Whittet (NAI RPI team)SUBJECT: Announcement and invitation to attend NAI “Workshop Without Walls”: The Organic Continuum from the […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Meteorites & Asteroids
'Ultra-Primitive' Particles Found in Comet Dust
Dust samples collected by high-flying aircraft in the upper atmosphere have yielded an unexpectedly rich trove of relicts from the ancient cosmos, report scientists from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Conferences and Meetings
10/5 NAI Director's Seminar
Danny Glavin (speaker) and Jason Dworkin, “Southpaw Solar System: L-Amino Acid Excesses in Meteorites and the Implications for the Origin of Homochirality on Earth” Abstract: Meteorites provide a record of […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Meteorites & Asteroids
NASA Researchers Make First Discovery of Life's Building Block in Comet
NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft. “Glycine is an amino acid used by living […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
A Clue to the Molecular
Members of NAI’s NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Team have a new paper in PNAS describing the distribution and enantiomeric composition of certain amino acids in carbonaceous meteorites. Their results […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Education and Outreach
NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program: Astrochemistry Laboratory
Members of the Astrochemistry Laboratory propose and carry out measurements, observations and modeling of key rates and/or fundamental quantities that control important chemical processes in astrophysical and planetary environments or […]