Habitability and Extreme Environments

Line coordinator:

Felipe Gómez Gómez

Planetology and Habitability Department

Telephone +34 915206461
Email gomezgf (+@cab.inta-csic.es)

Los objetivos del grupo se centran en el estudio de la vida, sus límites y el potencial de habitabilidad de lugares bajo condiciones extremas, incluyendo el estudio del potencial de habitabilidad y posible presencia de vida fuera del planeta Tierra.

Places such as Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa are among the places of research interest for the members of this research group. Several members of the group belong to the scientific teams of NASA (MSL-Curiosity and Mars2020-Perseverance) and ESA (ExoMars-Rosalind Franklin) space missions aimed at searching for traces of life on the surface of Mars.

Another important part of this group’s research focuses on the study of the limits of life, life in extreme environments, exposure of life forms to adverse environments simulated in planetary chambers, such as the conditions found on the surface of the planet Mars, with the aim of understanding what life is and whether it is possible for it to develop on planetary bodies other than planet Earth. Within the group, different activities and research projects are developed for the study and understanding of primitive Mars and its potential for habitability.

In order to achieve the objectives described above, we addressed the characterisation of extreme environments and palaeoenvironments of astrobiological interest (analogues) and their biodiversity, by carrying out scientific campaigns. It is worth mentioning the development of a particularly relevant project, IPBSL.

The analogues under study are essentially of four types:

Extreme acids where it is worth highlighting the multi-extreme environment of Dallol in Ethiopia of geothermal origin and where, apart from the extreme acid pH (pH approx. zero), there are other extreme characteristics such as the high temperature (thermophilic environment) of its waters from the underground volcano, high salinity (hypersaline environment) and metal concentration as well as toxic gases. Another example of an acidic nature is Rio Tinto, an extreme environment of pH 2 on average, which has been studied in recent years. In this last model, the IPBSL (Iberian Pyritic Belt Subsurface Life Detection) project was developed, in which the subterranean environments (200-1000 m) of the area where the Tinto river originates were explored and in which new study approaches were applied, both molecular and technological, to automatically search for life.
Hypersaline such as the Tirez lagoon system.
Thermophiles such as the Dallol environment described above or the Atacama Desert with strong thermal contrasts.
Psychrophiles such as polar environments (arctic permafrost and cold Antarctic environments).

In the context of the studies described above, we can highlight some of the scientific campaigns and achievements in the department:

Danakil Depression (Ethiopia), Iberian Pyritic Belt, Rio Tinto Basin, acidic lakes of the Iberian Pyritic Belt, Tirez Lagoon, Uyuni Salt Flat (Bolivia), Icelandic volcanic area, Alaskan permafrost, Chott El Jerid desert (Tunisia).
Description of the subsurface geomicrobiology of the Iberian Pyritic Belt.
Published studies on the preservation of microfossils under extreme conditions.
Description of the Fe and S cycles in the Iberian Pyritic Belt.
Biomineralisation and biomarker studies under extreme acidic conditions.

This line also performs an important role in space missions such as MSL-Curiosity and Mars2020-Perseverance. It is also involved in the ExoMars-Rosalind Franklin Rover Science Operations Working Group (RSOWG) (general mission preparation, and quad mapping for the new landing ellipses at Oxia Planum) and in several of the rover’s instruments: PanCam, CLUPI and RLS.