Extremophiles: Link between earth and astrobiology

Abstract

Astrobiology studies the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. The most promising worlds in Solar system, beyond Earth, which may harbor life are Mars and Jovian moon Europa. Extremophiles are organisms that thrive on the edge of temperature, hypersalinity, pH extremes, pressure, dryness and so on. In this paper, some extremophile cyanobacteria have been discussed as possible life forms in a scale of astrobiology. Samples were taken from solenetz and solonchak types of soil from the Vojvodina region. The main idea in this paper lies in the fact that high percentage of salt found in solonchak and solonetz gives the possibility of comparison these types of soil with 'soil' on Mars, which is also rich in salt.Astrobiologija se bavi proucavanjem nastanka, razvica, rasprostranjenosti i buducnosti zivota u svemiru. Mesta na kojima je najveca verovatnoca da postoji zivot van Zemlje, a unutar Suncevog sistema, su Mars i Jupiterov satelit Evropa. Ekstremofili su organizmi koji zive i opstaju u uslovima ekstremnih temperatura, pritisaka, pH vrednosti, ekstremno slanih stanista, itd. U ovom radu razmatrane su ekstremofilne cijanobakterije kao moguci oblici zivota u astrobioloskim razmerama. Uzrokovanje je obavljeno u Vojvodini, a uzorci su uzeti sa zemljista solonjec i soloncak. Cinjenica da solonjec i soloncak sadrze visok procenat soli, daje sansu poredjenja ova dva tipa zemljista sa zivotnim uslovima na Marsu, takodje okarakterisanim visokim procentom soli, sto je i osnovna ideja ovog rada.