Expedition to track down extreme living creatures

William Atkins
Friday, 08 February 2008 20:02

Science - Space

The research expedition headed by Hoover has already discovered new extremophiles in Alaska, Antaractica, Patagonia, and Siberia. In fact, Hoover states, "I found one extremophile in penguin guano. When I stooped to pick it up, Jim Lovell, my research partner then, said, 'What the heck are you doing now, Richard?' But it paid off."

Hoover’s team for its preliminary mission includes Valery Galchenko of Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Dale Anderson of the SETI Institute, and two polar logistics experts.

Their preliminary expedition is to set up for the full operations in December 2008.

The team will test various research equipment and conduct scientific experiments at lakes in the Schirmacher Oasis (which is located in central Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica). 

Once they have completed this preparatory trip they will be ready for the later trip to those same lakes and to their primary destination: Lake Untersee.

The primary expedition will include an international team of twelve to fourteen American, Russian, and Austrian scientists and two educators.

They hope to find never-before-seen creatures that are able to survive extreme conditions here on Earth and there out in space, in what is called exobiology (the search for organisms that live in outer space).

This article is based on the NASA article NASA article “Extremophile Hunt Begins”:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/07feb_cloroxlake.htm?list970856