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Life in Solid Ice on Earth and Other Planetary Bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2017

P. Buford Price
P. Buford Price*
Affiliation:
Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

Abstract

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Theory and direct observation indicate that micro-organisms exist in liquid veins in ice and permafrost, provided the temperature is above the eutectic for H2O and soluble impurities present. Microbes can exist and metabolize in glacial ice and permafrost on Earth, Mars, and Europa. One can search directly (with fluorescence microscopy at liquid veins in Vostok ice core samples) or with a biologging instrument (for microbial fluorescence in a borehole in terrestrial or martian permafrost or ice). The viability lifetime against DNA destruction of bacterial spores can be measured with analytical techniques that identify calcium dipicolinate, which is unique to spores.

Type
Archaea
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 213: Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the stars , 2004 , pp. 363 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004 

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