Astrobiology and Planetary Science

APL operates state-of-the-art facilities for simulating the environmental conditions of various worlds, including the Titan Chamber—the Lab’s largest environmental simulator and the only one of its kind in the world that mimics the frigid temperatures of Titan to test Dragonfly spacecraft systems.

They are leaders in the development of planetary particle and plasma investigations, conducting studies of Jupiter’s powerful aurora and Pluto’s dynamic atmosphere. APL scientists and engineers built or contributed to the imager, spectrometer, and plasma instruments to study Jupiter’s potentially habitable moon Europa. And through leading, building, and operating NASA’s Dragonfly mission to study the molecular building blocks of life on Titan, APL is helping spearhead the exploration of ocean worlds to understand their chemistries and potential habitability.

Researchers in our Astrobiology Laboratory explore organisms capable of living in extreme environments, conduct DNA and RNA nanopore sequencing, perform prebiotic chemistry experiments, and understand biosignature stability. APL researchers are also shaping universal habitability standards, integrating ecological and astrobiological models to unify the study of habitability across disciplines. These efforts guide the search for life and deepen our understanding of what makes environments—from Earth to extrasolar planets—capable of supporting life.

The Planetary Exploration Research Laboratory (PERL) drives scientific innovation with infrared and multispectral imagers and spectrometers, supporting planetary exploration with detailed mineral studies.

Our scientists and engineers have pioneered the robotic exploration of the solar system, leading the NEAR mission that captured the first close-up images of an asteroid, the MESSENGER mission that first mapped all of Mercury, and the New Horizons mission that captured the first images of Pluto’s icy heart. They provided a spectrometer to find ancient wet Martian environments and are building others to decipher the origins of Mars’ moon Phobos and the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche.

APL is also host to the Consortium on Habitability and Atmospheres of M-Dwarf Planets (CHAMPS), an interdisciplinary astrobiology research group that’s part of NASA’s Interdisciplinary Consortia for Astrobiology Research. CHAMPS is tasked with observing and understanding planets orbiting M-dwarf stars to ascertain if these planetary bodies are capable of supporting life. Our researchers have been awarded hundreds of hours of observation time with the James Webb Space Telescope to constrain the presence and composition of atmospheres on nearby rocky, M-dwarf planets.

For media inquiries, please contact the APL Public Affairs office.