Nathalie A. Cabrol

SETI Institute · SETI Institute Carl Sagan Center for Research

Background: The Andean Altiplano hosts a repertoire of high-altitude lakes with harsh conditions for life. These lakes are undergoing a process of desiccation caused by the current climate, leaving terraces exposed to extreme atmospheric conditions and serving as analogs to Martian paleolake basins. Microbiomes in Altiplano lake terraces have been...

Small, circular holes, lined with a thin gypsum veneer, and closely associated with gypsum tumuli (domes), occur at Salar de Pajonales, a salt flat in the northern Andes, Chile. We propose a model in which the formation of the gypsum‐lined holes, and less commonly the formation of the tumuli itself, is controlled by the unique juxtaposition of phys...

Cloud computing offers an opportunity to run compute-resource intensive climate models at scale by parallelising model runs such that datasets useful to the exoplanet community can be produced efficiently. To better understand the statistical distributions and properties of potentially habitable planetary atmospheres we implemented a parallelised c...

Several mass spectrometry and spectroscopic techniques have been used in the search for molecular biomarkers on Mars. A major constraint is their capability to detect and identify large and complex compounds such as peptides or other biopolymers. Multiplex immunoassays can detect these compounds, but antibodies must be produced for a large number o...

In the search for biosignatures on Mars, there is an abundance of data from orbiters and rovers to characterize global and regional habitability, but much less information is available at the scales and resolutions of microbial habitats and biosignatures. Understanding whether the distribution of terrestrial biosignatures is characterized by recogn...

Subaerial hydrothermal systems are of great interest for paleobiology and astrobiology as plausible candidate environments to support the origin of life on Earth that offer a unique and interrelated atmosphere-hydrosphere-lithosphere interface. They harbor extensive sinter deposits of high preservation potential that are promising targets in the se...

Qui de mieux que Nathalie A. Cabrol pour faire le point dans un essai vivant et didactique sur l’une des questions les plus profondes de l’humanité : sommes-nous seuls dans l’Univers ? La directrice scientifique du centre SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, « Recherche d’intelligence extraterrestre ») aborde tour à tour l’exploration de...

In extreme environments, microbial organisms reside in pockets with locally habitable conditions. Micro-climates conducive to the persistence of life in an otherwise inhospitable environment—“refugia”—are spatially restricted and can be micro- to centimeters in extent. If martian microbes are preserved in fossil refugia, this presents a double-edge...

The ability to model and predict the structure and synthesis of ever more complex molecules at the atomic scale is a bottleneck spanning multiple disciplines. These include the fundamental and applied sciences – from organic synthesis of novel pharmaceuticals to detecting biosignatures on distant planets. Improved methods that assist with computing...

The search for life beyond Earth is complicated by the lack of a consensus on what life is – especially when considering potential forms of life not resembling anything known on Earth. Agnostic means of assessing samples for evidence of life are needed to address this challenge. Information encoded within the atoms and bonds of a molecule can be us...

In extreme environments, microbial organisms reside in pockets with locally habitable conditions. Micro-climates conducive to the persistence of life in an otherwise inhospitable environment – “refugia” – are spatially restricted and can be micro- to centimeters in extent. If martian microbes are preserved in fossil refugia, this presents a double-...

The goals of Mars exploration are evolving beyond describing environmental habitability at global and regional scales to targeting specific locations for biosignature detection, sample return, and eventual human exploration (Cabrol 2018; Jakosky et al. 2020; Warren-Rhodes et al. in review). An increase in the specificity of scientific goals – from...

Early Earth and Mars had analogous environments. While life developed on our planet, the question of whether it did on Mars remains to be answered. Hot spring deposits are compelling targets for exploration because of their high habitability and potential to retain morphological and chemical biosignatures. As a result in this study, we aim to bette...

Hydrothermal systems and their deposits are primary targets in the search for fossil evidence of life beyond Earth. However, to learn how to decode fossil biomarker records in ancient hydrothermal deposits, we must first be able to interpret unambiguously modern biosignatures, their distribution patterns, and their association with physicochemical...

Hydrothermal systems and their deposits are primary targets in the search for fossil evidence of life beyond Earth. However, to learn how to decode fossil biomarker records in ancient hydrothermal deposits, we must first be able to interpret unambiguously modern biosignatures, their distribution patterns, and their association with physicochemical...

Salt-encrusted basins of the high Andes are among the best terrestrial analogs for salt-encrusted basins on Mars. Topographic constructs form in these basins on Earth due to the activity of water. We explore two examples of these constructs in a halite and gypsum salar and evaluate the implications for exploration of Mars.

2022 Astrobiology Conference

Salar de Pajonales, a Ca-sulfate salt flat in the Chilean High Andes, showcases the type of polyextreme environment recognized as one of the best terrestrial analogs for early Mars because of its aridity, high solar irradiance, salinity, and oxidation. The surface of the salar represents a natural climate-transition experiment where contemporary la...

Thermal response of the surface to solar insolation is a function of the topography and the thermal physical characteristics of the landscape, which include bulk density, heat capacity, thermal conductivity and surface albedo and emissivity. Thermal imaging is routinely used to constrain thermal physical properties by characterizing or modeling cha...

Single-crystal (U-Th)/He dating of 32 apatite and zircon crystals from an impact breccia yielded a weighted mean age of 663 ± 28 ka (n = 3; 4.2 % 2σ uncertainties) for the Monturaqui impact structure, Chile. This ∼350 m diameter simple crater preserves a small volume of impactite consisting of polymict breccias that are dominated by reworked target...

Nathalie A. Cabrol a cinq ans lorsqu'elle regarde le premier homme poser le pied sur la Lune. Pointant du doigt l'écran de télévision, elle dit à sa mère que c'est ce qu'elle veut faire. Quand on la questionne sur sa vocation, elle répond qu'elle n'a jamais rien voulu faire d'autre. Aujourd'hui, après avoir participé à la mission Mars Exploration R...

Since the initial experiments nearly 50 years ago, techniques for detecting caves using airborne and spacecraft acquired thermal imagery have improved markedly. These advances are largely due to a combination of higher instrument sensitivity, modern computing systems, and processor intensive analytical techniques. Through applying these advancement...

This dataset is one of many used in the development of the manuscript 'Advancing Cave Detection using Terrain Analysis and Thermal Imagery' by Wynne et al. 2021. Manuscript Abstract: Since the initial experiments nearly 50 years ago, techniques for detecting caves using airborne and spacecraft acquired thermal imagery have improved markedly. These...

As part of a NASA-funded study of diurnal thermal imaging at a Mars analog site, we conducted simultaneous oblique thermal imaging and in situ temperature measurements within two regions of interest on the Pisgah lava field, near Ludlow, California. Both regions of interest contained either cave or cave-like alcoves. Data released in this report wa...

s the Perseverance rover embarks on a journey to seek signs of ancient life in the 3.7 billion years old Jezero crater, Cabrol theorizes that not only life could still be present on Mars today, but it could also be much more widespread and accessible than previously believed. Her conclusions are based on years of exploration of early Mars analogs i...

Solar radiation has been measured in the high Andes near Laguna Lejia (latitude 23° 26’ 23.30" S, longitude 67° 38’ 14.29" W) at an elevation of 4715 m between December 2016 and December 2017. Irradiances were monitored in four wavelength channels: PAR (400 – 700 nm), UV‐A (315 – 400 nm), UV‐B (295 – 315 nm) and short‐wavelength UV‐B (295 – 310 nm)...

Nathalie Cabrol finds inspiration in the harsh environment of the desert while searching for Mars-like conditions.

Recent scientific works converge towards the concept of a living universe. Let’s imagine for a moment that they are right. What would this mean for astrobiology’s perspective on the origin and nature of life, and for its exploration?

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00069.].

On its way to Jupiter in 1990, the Galileo spacecraft searched for signs of life on Earth, providing a set of control experiments that continue to inform our quest to detect extraterrestrial life.

The Atacama Desert, the oldest and driest desert on Earth, displays significant rains only once per decade. To investigate how microbial communities take advantage of these sporadic wet events, we carried out a geomicrobiological study a few days after a heavy rain event in 2015. Different physicochemical and microbial community analyses were condu...

Mineralogical evidence of aqueous alteration on Mars, coupled with morphological evidence of ancient lakes and valleys support the possibility of inhabited ecosystems on Mars that can be identified remotely through mineral signatures. Here we present examples of mineral transitions observed at the Mawrth Vallis region of Mars that indicate changes...

The intellectual framework underpinning the preparation of future life-seeking missions is articulated around the principle of habitability, which does not imply life but simply considers environmental conditions for its emergence and sustainability. While helpful, this principle is limiting and potentially misleading. It focuses primarily on the e...

The NASA Frontier Development Laboratory (FDL) is an annual science accelerator that focuses on applying machine learning and large-scale computing to challenges in space science and exploration. During the 2018 FDL program, we implemented a cloud-based strategy to better understand the statistical distributions of habitable planets and life in the...

In the Northern Chile, gypsum and halite are the most predominant occurring minerals in saline deposits, but gypsum deposits cover more area than do halite deposits. Due to the capacity of water penetration and the protection against UV radiation, gypsum plays a role as an endolithic niche for phototrophic and chemotrophic microorganisms. Recently,...

Hydrothermal deposits remain astrobiological targets in the search for life on rocky planets because their high habitability and preservation potentials enable them to serve as key paleobiological repositories for some of Earth's earliest inhabitants, land-based hot springs could have served as an abode for life's origin, and mono-mineralic hot spr...

Searching for life beyond Earth requires we consider the planets and moons we explore as possible biospheres, where life and environment coevolved throughcomplex feedback mechanisms. The explosion of geo- and biodiversity on our planet was born from this dynamic process of natural cycles and stochastic events that we are trying to trace back to the...

Cryptic niches such as salt deposits are some of the last microbial refuges in many of the world’s deserts, including the Atacama—one of Earth’s oldest and driest deserts and a Mars analog for its hyperaridity, extensive salt deposits, severe diurnal temperature fluctuations and extremely high ultraviolet radiation. An NAI SETI 2016 pilot study rev...

On our planet, aqueous environments such as deep sea or high-altitude aphotic lakes, subject to present or past volcanic activity and active deglaciation, may provide analogs to the aqueous environments found on such planetary bodies as Europa, Titan or Enceladus. We report here on the methodologies and technologies tested in Laguna Negra, a high a...

Potential benthic habitats of early Mars lakes, probably oligotrophic, could range from hydrothermal to cold sediments. Dynamic processes in the water column (such as turbidity or UV penetration) as well as in the benthic bed (temperature gradients, turbation, or sedimentation rate) contribute to supply nutrients to a potential microbial ecosystem....

Sediments in the hyper-arid core of the Atacama Desert are a terrestrial analog to Mars regolith. Understanding the distribution and drivers of microbial life in the sediment may give critical clues on how to search for biosignatures on Mars. Here, we identify the spatial distribution of highly specialized bacterial communities in previously unexpl...

This paper provides an overview of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit Microscopic Imager (MI) operations and the calibration, processing, and analysis of MI data. The focus of this overview is on the last five Earth years (2005–2010) of Spirit's mission in Gusev crater, supplementing the previous overview of the first 450 sols of the Spirit MI investiga...

Geothermal springs support microbial communities at elevated temperatures in an ecosystem with high preservation potential that makes them interesting analogs for early evolution of the biogeosphere. The El Tatio geysers field in the Atacama Desert has astrobiological relevance due to the unique occurrence of geothermal features with steep hydrothe...

From Habitability to Life on Mars explores the current state of knowledge and questions on the past habitability of Mars and the role that rapid environmental changes may have played in the ability of prebiotic chemistry to transition to life. It investigates the role that such changes may have played in the preservation of biosignatures in the geo...

Sediments in the hyper-arid core of the Atacama Desert are a terrestrial analogue to Mars regolith. Understanding the distribution and drivers of microbial life in the sediment may give critical clues on how to search for biosignatures on Mars. Here, we identify the spatial distribution of highly specialised bacterial communities in previously unex...

Project Blue is designed to deliver a small coronagraphic space telescope mission to low-Earth orbit capable of detecting an Earth-like planet in the habitable zones of the Sun-like stars Alpha Centauri A and B within the next 4 years within a Mission of Opportunity budget envelope. The concept heavily leverages emerging commercial capabilities --...

Laguna Negra and Lo Encañado are two oligotrophic Andean lakes forming part of the system fed by meltwater from distinct glacial tongues of the Echaurren glacier in central Chile, which is in a recession period. The recent increase in temperature and decline in precipitation have led to an increase of glacial meltwater and sediments entering these...

Lakes on early Mars could have provided favorable environments for the development of microbial life and for its preservation in the fossil record. While they ultimately disappeared as atmospheric changes were taking place, the evolution of their habitability would have controlled the ability of any life present to transition to the newly developin...

Earth's biological and environmental evolution are intertwined and inseparable. This coevolution has become a fundamental concept in astrobiology and is key to the search for life beyond our planet. In the case of Mars, whether a coevolution took place is unknown, but analyzing the factors at play shows the uniqueness of each planetary experiment r...

As part of the SETI NAI Team’s effort to develop a roadmap to biosignature exploration, which supports NASA’s decadal plan for the search for life and for the upcoming NASA and ESA rover missions that will launch in 2020, we seek to optimize the ability to identify and cache the most valuable samples on Mars. This strategy requires an understanding...

Oligotrophic glacial lakes in the Andes Mountains serve as models to study the effects of climate change on natural biological systems. The persistent high UV regime and evolution of the lake biota due to deglaciation make Andean lake ecosystems potential analogues in the search for life on other planetary bodies. Our objective was to identify micr...

A scale model of the proposed Titan Mare Explorer capsule was deployed at the Planetary Lake Lander field site at Laguna Negra, Chile. The tests served to calibrate models of wind-driven drift of the capsule and to understand its attitude motion in the wave field, as well as to identify dynamic and acoustic signatures of shoreline approach. This in...

Unlabelled: Advances in planetary and space sciences, astrobiology, and life and cognitive sciences, combined with developments in communication theory, bioneural computing, machine learning, and big data analysis, create new opportunities to explore the probabilistic nature of alien life. Brought together in a multidisciplinary approach, they hav...

Binary choice experiments under natural solar radiation were used to test short-term behavioral responses of freshwater calanoid copepods to ultraviolet radiation (UV). Responses of the nine species from 15 populations spanning North and South America included both UV attraction and UV avoidance, and varied among habitats, species and populations....