The Planetary Biology Program is chartered to investigate the origin and evolution of life. This research combines the talents of biologists, chemists, physicists, geologists, and astronomers into a multidisciplinary program which utilizes NASA's unique capabilities for technology, space flight, and exploration.
This Program's major areas of research address the chemistry of biologically important elements and compounds in interstellar space and in the solar system, the processes on the prebiotic Earth leading to the origin of life, the evidence in fossils and microorganisms regarding early evolution, and the search for life elsewhere in the cosmos.