NASA has awarded almost $50 million to seven research teams for studying the origin, distribution, future, an evolution of life in the universe.
The seven teams will become members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute or NAI. The NAI is headquartered at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
"With Mars 2020 on the horizon, these research teams will provide the critical interdisciplinary expertise to help interpret data from future astrobiology-focused missions," said Jim Green, director of planetary science division at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.
The teams include:
-NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, Greenbelt, Maryland
-NASA's Ames Research Centre, Moffett Field, California
- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
-The SETI Institute in Mountain View, California
-University of Colorado in Boulder
-University of California, Riverside
-University of Montana in Missoula
The average funding for each team will be around $8 million, NASA said in a statement.
Click here to find out what each team will be focusing on.
New teams will make the connections between disciplines and organizations that stimulate fundamental scientific advances.
"The intellectual scope of astrobiology is vast, from understanding how our planet went from lifeless to living, to understanding how life has adapted to Earth's harshest environments, to exploring other worlds with the most advanced technologies to search for signs of life," said Mary Voytek, director, astrobiology program, NASA Headquarters. "The new teams cover that breadth of astrobiology, and by coming together in the NAI, they will make the connections between disciplines and organizations that stimulate fundamental scientific advances."
The new teams will join the already existing teams, including the University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois and University of Southern California.
Each team has its base in Seattle, Cambridge, Madison, Urbana-Champaign and Los Angeles, respectively, according to NASA.
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