Mikucki Digs Deep for Space-Bound Microbiology
The smallest Earth-bound organisms can inspire technology that will someday reach far across the solar system in the search for extraterrestrial life. UT Microbiology Professor Jill Mikucki studies how microbial life forms interact with their environments—and helps fellow scientists and engineers test the tools to detect the microbial impact throughout entire ecosystems.
Mikucki’s field work takes her to Earth’s coldest regions to learn more about our own planet and help develop this equipment that may someday explore life on ocean worlds—celestial bodies in our solar system that offer some of the best possibilities for finding life beyond Earth.
These extraterrestrial oceans are locked beneath thick ice covers that are hundreds of meters thick. Mikucki helps engineers who are developing ice-melting probes, or “cryobots,” as tools for exploring and sampling these realms. They test them in conditions that are as close as we can currently get to far away frozen planets and moons.
This deep-probing research is funded through multiple sources, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Planetary Science and Technology from Analog Research (PSTAR) program, the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, and UT’s Office of Research, Innovation, and Development (ORIED).
Planning Ahead is Vital
“You’re trying to run a science lab on top of a glacier,” said Mikucki. “We’re always dealing with weather extremes—doing science in a tent.”
These adventurous mobile labs allow her team to peer into environments isolated deep underneath glaciers. Frozen regions, known as the cryosphere, offer model situations for the study of microbial processes, far from the milling crowds of more complex ecosystems on our planet’s surface.
“There are features of these icy systems that are analogous to some of the things we might encounter elsewhere,” said Mikucki. “If you want to test what a concept of an operation might be, you set up an expedition to Antarctica or Greenland, for example, to test your tools and your ability to detect life, communicate with the equipment, or take measurements.”
Interdisciplinary Collaborations
Mikucki’s colleagues for these explorations are faculty and students from across the college, university, and other institutions. She also contributes as a member in UT’s new Center for Planetary Science and Exploration.
“I’m a microbiologist, but I love working across disciplines,” she said. “We speak completely different languages, and we have different, specific priorities, but we all want mission success.”
This mission-driven team offers potential solutions from multiple angles during the research, from microbiological studies to engineers who help develop the mechanical side of melt probes and other equipment.
“I’ve just found it so enriching, and I love to expose my students to that type of really interdisciplinary collaboration,” said Mikucki. “That’s how you can tackle big and challenging problems.”
UT students often get to go along on these chilly adventures to test the ice probes, and others follow up with rigorous analysis back on campus. Mikucki co-published on research led by microbiology PhD alumnus Caleb Schuler with UT engineering undergraduate Bruce Boles and other colleagues in Astrobiology Journal in 2023 (“Microbial Transport by a Descending Ice Melting Probe: Implications for Subglacial and Ocean World Exploration”).
“For me, getting my students out there is key,” said Mikucki. “They’ve been wonderful at diving into the materials we have in the lab, but seeing and working out of a freezer is very different than getting in the field and seeing what the actual challenges are, what your samples mean in context, and as part of workforce development. My goal is to find a way to make more opportunities as I can.”
Keeping Cryobots Clean
A top priority is to ensure that the ice-melting cryobots work effectively while not contaminating the collected samples or the ecosystems under exploration. Mikucki and colleagues have tested methods to decontaminate a particular melt probe known as the Ice Diver under a range of drilling scenarios.
“These melt probes are going into extremely pristine environments,” said Mikucki. “As a human, I’m covered with microbes, as is all our equipment. We’re making sure that instrument is as clean as possible so we’re not getting false positives when we go down.”
This method falls under the idea of planetary protection: avoiding contamination of the environment while ensuring the integrity of the collected samples.
“Then we can try to push the envelope of what we can learn from these really small, often low-biomass samples that we’re able to collect,” she said. Her team’s next trek will be in summer 2025 for more tests with the Ice Diver on the Juneau Ice Fields in Alaska.
By Randall Brown
