We're not necessarily looking for life
that looks like us, that thinks, and walks,
and talks. The fact that you can have
life even is a very, very small one
celled organism living someplace else is
exciting. We're looking for just a simple
form of life. I'm a planetary geologist.
A planetary geologist looks at the
rocks on other planets in an attempt to
understand what the history of that
planet might have been. For example, I am
very interested in Mars, the red planet.
The planet Mars had water at one time,
but over a period of time, the water was
lost. And what you had left behind are
deposits that are represented by
something that you know every day-- halite.
This mineral, which we look at is a
common table salt, tells us a lot about
what happened in the past. Whether it be
our planet Earth, or another planet.
Because associated with these very salty
bodies are bacteria. Very small microbes
that are adapted to living in these very
salty environments. If we have bodies of
water that are salty and we know that there
are bacteria that love this stuff, then
we say that microbes on Earth survived
this. And oh my gosh, we now have bacteria
that have been able to survive a similar
environment on another planet. And this
is exciting, because it tells us that
life is not unique. It can occur and a
lot of interesting odd places. I was
very lucky as an undergraduate to have a
woman who thought I had some ability. And
it started off in a basic biology class
of being able to pigeonhole, or identify
organisms fairly easily. If you had told
me at that point that I could do it, I
would have said no, this is too scary. I
don't think I can handle it.
But you take it one step at a time. I
started off
somebody studying fossils, and then I had
an opportunity come to work with NASA.
That's when I became more interested
the origin of life, and how it changed over
time, and I moved into geology. Because in
order to understand that you have to
understand geology. Well, the important
thing about Earth is it serves as a
model. You can think about it as a role
model for helping us understand what
happens and on other planets, such as
Mars. I'm very interested in the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest
bodies here on Earth, so it doesn't
represent Mars as it is today. But
represented Mars at one point when it
was losing all of its water. So if we
find life in the Dead Sea in the form of
a microbe, we can say that it's highly
likely that at some point, a similar kind
of micro organism or micro was living in
Mars in a very similar salty water. We
have not landed on any other planet. We
have to rely on machines that send us
back information. We're looking at rocks
and what they're made up of. We as human
beings should constantly be looking
around us and looking at how life can be
different. I've looked at the dead sea
I've looked at Mono Lake, I've looked at
another area in the Bahamas, but there's
so many other places I would also like
to see and compare and see how they
differ. I wish I could actually go
someplace off this planet and explore. It
would be so exciting.
