The answers to these and many other questions about Life on the Edge may be found on our Frequently Asked Questions web page. Students would apply simple laboratory protocols to assess the effects of severe conditions on their microbe samples, and to learn how these conditions compare with environments elsewhere in the solar system, such as Europa, the Moon, and Mars. We have to decide which microbes are going to work best in the field and in the classroom. That's the purpose of the White Mountain activity. The first phase of Life on the Edge begins next week when Dr. Tony Phillips and a team of 8 Siberian Huskies will transport a 50 lb container of test microbes to the summit of the White Mountain Range in central California.
Conditions there are severe.
At 14,249 ft., the air pressure is only 600 millibars, and the sustained temperature during winter is a frigid -20 C. Annual precipitation is less than 12 inches, most of which arrives as snow in winter. The temperature, pressure, and low humidity are similar to conditions at Earth's south pole during the austral summer. This picture taken in the spring of 1996 shows the White Mountain Summit Research Facility, a tiny stone building barely visible in the distance at the summit's highest point. The Life on the Edge microbe vessel will be located a short distance from the Research Facility. Photo courtesy White Mountain Research Station.