The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA has awarded five year grants to several research groups from the U.S. to further study the origin of life in the universe, its evolution and extraterrestrial life beyond the solar system.

The grants amount to almost US$50 million. Each research team was awarded with some US$8 million and will closely work together with NASA's Astrobiology Institute (NAI) located at the Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California.

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All the research teams will fully cover all the areas of astrobiology. They will cooperate and correspond with the NAI, according to Mary Voytek, director of astrobiology programs at NASA.

Voytek adds that astrobiology's intellectual scope may be vast but this research will help scientists understand more about the evolution of life on Earth and how Earth's adaptation went from the most extreme environments. The research will also help scientists develop ultra advanced technology to track signs of life beyond the solar system.

NASA's Ames Research Center aims to study the chemistry that constitutes organic molecules that evolved from the building blocks of life.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland will observe and explore comets and similar solar system bodies along with smaller exoplanets since these possess water molecules and other organic molecules responsible for life on Earth.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will further investigate different environments on planets. JPL will also measure livable extraterrestrial habitat in icy worlds similar to Jupiter's and Saturn's moons.

The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California will proceed to establish guidelines regarding directions for the search for alien life. Among these guidelines will be what kind of evidence to watch out for and how to determine evidence for extraterrestrial life if it happened in the past or if it currently exists.

The University of California will study the emergence and history of oxygen levels found in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans from 3.2 billion years back to present day levels.

The University of Colorado will observe and study planets that possess rocky terrain and composition and study how chemical energy is produced between rocks and water that might have promoted living systems.

The University of Montana will elaborate and probe into how life transformed from small chemical reactions into cells and systems that reproduce and gather energy.

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