Tori Hoehler, chief researcher at the Ames Research Center, said: "There is no one-size-fits-all way to find extraterrestrial life. To make a breakthrough, we need toDevelopmentCustomize tools and strategies to detect unique conditions in other worlds that are completely different from Earth. We now have expertise in science and engineering to answer this profound question. As scientific evidence becomes clearer, our great group of scientists is ready to meet this major challenge.
Research teams from Georgetown University and Georgia Institute of Technology will join the Center for Life Detection Sciences.
Researchers at Georgetown University Laboratory will examine "fingerprints of life" and try to identify "unknown" life from distant lands, where life may look very different from that on Earth.
Georgia Tech's Oceans Across Space and Time team will investigate the possibility of past or present life on the cold outer satellites of the solar system or ancient Mars.
In the next year, dozens of research teams will join the project. The project will be modeled on NASA's Exoplanet System Science project in 2015, which aims to study the habitability of distant planets.