CREATING A NEW FIELD: THE NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE

The field of astrobiology was born more than a decade ago from a “Perfect Storm” of scientific developments and discoveries. A deepening understanding of the diversity of life on Earth, the first discoveries of planets around other stars, and a growing appreciation of the nature of extraterrestrial environments in our solar system all contributed to a recognition that the time was right to focus scientific and technological expertise on studying the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. A cross-disciplinary community of researchers has since been created to pursue questions at the interfaces of geology, paleontology, microbiology, evolutionary biology, geochemistry, astrophysics, planetary science, and philosophy, to name just a few of the disciplines engaged. The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), a virtual research institute currently comprising 14 US teams (with about 600 members total) and 6 international partner organizations, has played a major role in developing this community. I will briefly describe the NAI, and then review some of the scientific research it has supported that is profoundly altering our view of Earth, planetary habitability, and the origin of life.