THURSDAY ON KIRO 7- The search for alien life: Inside UW’s astrobiology program

If life exists elsewhere in the universe, researchers at the University of Washington are finding the clues on Earth to help understand where to look for it.

For 25 years, the program has looked at how life began on Earth and how those conditions can translate to other planets in the galaxy.

The research was sparked by a few events in the late 90’s: a meteor discovered in Antarctica that originated from Mars, the discovery of an ‘exoplanet’ that was in the habitable zone around a star, and the discovery of life near the hot springs of Yellowstone and thermal vents in the depths of Earth’s oceans.