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Origin of Species?

Mounted to the front of ROV Jason, these isobaric gas-tight (IGT) samplers are ready to be deployed for sampling a hydrothermal vent in the Mid-Cayman Rise. In an unprecedented project co-funded by NSF and NASA from 2008 to 2012, WHOI researchers collected samples from 38 hydrothermal vent locations around the world, looking for a compound called methanethiol— a critical precursor to life. Their surprising findings, published in April 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, could give future scientists an idea of what to look for when searching for evidence of life on other planets.(Photo by Chris German and the ROV Jason Team, National Deep Submergence Facility, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution )