Where Is the Upper Altitude Boundary of Earth's Biosphere? An Upcoming Stratosphere Exploration Mission
Earths atmosphere provides a relatively thin barrier to the severe conditions of space. Terrestrial microorganisms from our planets surface gets swept up into the atmosphere at rates which are influenced by meteorology, season, and variety of other regionally-dependent conditions. Residence time of microbes in the atmosphere, dispersal patterns, and metabolic activity in clouds are topics of special interest in tropospheric aerobiology. But what about even higher altitudes? A century of ocean exploration has allowed the scientific community to characterize marine life at every depth. Such knowledge was enabled by routine access, specifically, submersible vehicles with sample return systems. The outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere probably contain trace signatures of microbial life swept up from the surface, but high-altitude exploration (from 18-50 km above sea level) has been severely constrained by a shortage of reliable affordable sample acquisition systems. Thus, attempts to establish the upper altitude limits of Earths biosphere boundary remain unresolved. Previous conclusions based on observations of microbial growth and DNA signatures from samples collected in the upper atmosphere have resulted in extraordinary claims for the tenacity of life in the stratosphere. This altitude range can be regarded as a natural laboratory for examining the edge of habitability, a topic of central important to the field of astrobiology; in fact, stratosphere conditions (high UV light and low extremes of temperature, pressure, and relative humidity) closely resemble stressors associated with the surface of Mars. Moreover, low biomass detection instruments developed exploring Earths upper atmosphere can contribute to future strategies for life detection with spacecraft exploring other worlds. While pioneering, many past stratospheric microbiology studies have been qualitative in nature and lacking rigorous contamination control measurements to verify system sterility. We have designed, constructed, and recently flown a novel system for collecting upper atmosphere bioaerosols using the NASA C20A aircraft. We will report preliminary mission results from the lower stratosphere (characterizing abundance, diversity and survivability or airborne microorganisms), describe our methods for reducing false positives, and outline the open scientific engineering challenges in an ongoing effort to better establish Earths high-altitude biosphere boundary.