The origin and emergence of life under impact bombardment (2006)
Craters formed by asteroids and comets offer a number of possibilities as sites for prebiotic chemistry, and they invite a literal application of Darwin's ‘warm little pond’. Some of these...
Parnell, John, Lee, Pascal, Osinski, Gordon R., Cockell, Charles
Organic geochemistry applied to samples of bedrock and surface sediment from the Haughton impact structure detects a range of signatures representing the impact event and the transfer of organic...
Planetary protection—A microbial ethics approach (2005)
Planetary protection policies designed to reduce the cross-transfer of life on spacecraft from one planet to another can either be formulated from the pragmatic instrumental needs of scientific...
Genomics: applications to Antarctic ecosystems (2005)
Peck, Lloyd S., Clark, Melody S., Clarke, Andrew, Cockell, Charles, Convey, Peter, Detrich III, H. William, ...
Biological research in Antarctica has made considerable progress in science over recent decades. As little as 50 years ago, there was scant knowledge even of the species inhabiting the region. Since...
Vanguard - a European robotic astrobiology-focussed Mars sub-surface mission proposal (2005)
Ellery, Alex, Ball, Andrew J., Cockell, Charles, Dickensheets, David, Edwards, Howell, Kolb, Christof, ...
We present a new European Mars mission proposal to build on the UK-led Beagle2 Mars mission and continue its astrobiology-focussed investigation of Mars. The small surface element to be delivered to...
A Scientific Impact Response Team for the Aftermath of Small Asteroid and Comet Impacts (2005)
Most asteroid and comet impacts cause localized destruction, not global-scale extinctions. The way in which the international community would respond to such events has not been defined. During the...
Raman spectroscopy of endoliths from Antarctic cold desert environments (2005)
Jorge Villar, Susana E., Edwards, Howell G. M., Cockell, Charles
Six endolithic communities from Antarctic cold desert environments have been analysed by Raman spectroscopy. The extreme conditions that the organisms have to withstand in cold environments leads to...
The unsupported transpolar assault on the Martian Geographic North Pole (2005)
I describe the unsupported (no vehicles and no resupply and supplies manhauled along the entire route), overland assault on the Martian Geographic North Pole by two people. The total initial mass of...
Duties to extraterrestrial microscopic organisms (2005)
Formulating a normative axiology for the treatment of extraterrestrial microscopic organisms, should they ever be found, requires an extension of environmental ethics to beyond the Earth. Using an...
The uses of Martian ice (2004)
In this paper I explore potential relationships between humans and Martian polar ices. Martian ices contain within them multimillion year histories of atmospheric, geological and maybe even...
Over the last forty years, the circle of organisms thought worthy of inclusion within an ethical framework has expanded markedly, in large part in response to Aldo Leopold's 'land ethic'. However,...
The value of humans in the biological exploration of space (2004)
Regardless of the discovery of life on Mars, or of “no apparent life” on Mars, the questions that follow will provide a rich future for biological exploration. Extraordinary pattern recognition...
Patel, Manish, Christou, A.A., Cockell, Charles, Ringrose, Tim, Zarnecki, John
December 25th 2003 will see the Beagle 2 lander arrive at the surface of Mars in the Isidis region, allowing for the first time in situ measurements of ultraviolet (UV) flux directly from the surface...
Biological UV dosimetry using the DLR biofilm (2004)
Rettberg, P., Cockell, Charles
Changes of environmental UV radiation as part of global atmospheric changes will influence the biosphere substantially. The determination of the biological effects of these changes requires accurate...
The ascent of Olympus - An Everest anniversary perspective (2004)
Olympus Mons, at 21,1183 m above the Mars gravitational equipotential, stands just under 2.5 times the height of Mount Everest. Symbolically, as the highest construct in the Solar System, it is the...
Field innovations in support of Martian polar expeditions (2004)
The Martian poles present a challenging environment for expedition planners. I review and describe innovations in support of human Martian polar expeditions that are a direct extrapolation of...
The circumnavigation of the moon (2004)
The unsupported circumnavigation of the lunar surface, either around the equator or over both poles is the longest distance expedition that can be implemented on the lunar surface. This mini-review...
Impact-shocked gneiss shocked to greater than 10 GPa in the Haughton impact structure in the Canadian High Arctic has an approximately 25-times greater pore surface area than unshocked rocks. These...
Cockell, Charles, Rettberg, Petra, Horneck, Gerda, Scherer, Kerstin, Stokes, Dale M.
Biological dosimeters made from a monolayer of Bacillus subtilis spores were used to investigate the penetration of ultraviolet radiation into some widespread terrestrial microbial microhabitats at...
Fike, David A., Cockell, Charles, Pearce, David, Lee, Pascal
The polar desert is one of the most extreme environments on Earth. Endolithic organisms can escape or mitigate the hazards of the polar desert by using the resources available in the interior of...
Polar endoliths – an anti-correlation of climatic extremes and microbial biodiversity (2002)
Cockell, Charles, McKay, Christopher P., Omelon, Christopher
We examined the environmental stresses experienced by cyanobacteria living in endolithic gneissic habitats in the Haughton impact structure, Devon Island, Canadian High Arctic (75° N) and compared...
Astrobiology - a new opportunity for interdisciplinary thinking (2002)
During the past decade new questions in science have emerged that require broad inter-disciplinary approaches. ‘Do asteroids and comets cause extinctions?’ and ‘Was there, or is there, life on...
Fostering links between environmental and space exploration: the Earth and Space Foundation (2002)
Cockell, Charles, White, Don, Messier, Douglas, Stokes, M. Dale
The links between Earth and space exploration occur across a broad spectrum, from the use of satellite technology to support environmental monitoring and habitat protection to the study of extreme...
Cockell, Charles, Horneck, Gerda, Rettberg, Petra, Arendt, Jo, Scherer, Kerstin, Facius, Rainer, ...
We used ultraviolet radiation dosimeters to investigate human exposure at two polar latitudes with a 24-h photoperiod: at Rothera Station (UK) (67°S) and at a field camp in the Haughton impact...
The Trans-Mars Expedition – A Long-Distance, Long-Duration, Scientific EVA (2002)
Of Martian expeditionary accomplishments, the Trans-Mars Expedition is the most audacious in terms of the logistical challenges imposed upon it and diversity of scientific foci it could encompass....
Johnson, Jeffrey R., Ruff, Steven W., Moersch, Jeffrey, Roush, Ted, Horton, Keith, Bishop, Janice, ...
Upcoming Mars Surveyor lander missions will include extensive spectroscopic capabilities designed to improve interpretations of the mineralogy and geology of landing sites on Mars. The 1999 Marsokhod...
Newsom, H.E., Bishop, Janice L., Cockell, Charles, Roush, Ted L., Johnson, Jeffrey R.
The Marsokhod 1999 field experiment in the Mojave Desert included a simulation of a rover-based sample selection mission. As part of this mission, a test was made of strategies and analytical...
Westall, Frances, De Ronde, Cornel E.J, Southam, Gordon, Grassineau, Nathalie, Colas, Maggy, Cockell, Charles, ...
Modelling suggests that the UV radiation environment of the early Earth, with DNA weighted irradiances of about three orders of magnitude greater than those at present, was hostile to life forms at...