Picking a biology subfield for astrobiology career

[altairpilot]

Greetings,

I'm really interested in pursuing graduate work in astrobiology. The area I'm most interested in is the search for life in the subsurface oceans of Europa and similar bodies. I still need to complete my bachelor's, and I'm wondering what subfield of biology would be most beneficial to major in. The school I'm interested in, University of Washington, offers general biology, ecology/evolution/conservation, molecular/cellular/developmental, physiology and plant biology as majors, with marine biology and paleobiology offered as minors. I'm thinking that whichever field would expose me the most to extremophiles would be logical. Thanks for responses

[CharonY]

Many astrobiologists hail from other disciplines, including biochemistry and physics. But among those I know that started with biology most are in the areas of evolution (emphasis on computational biology), microbiology and biochemistry. From the list you provided I would intuitively go toward molecular/cellular biology as it exposes you to the very basics of life.

[Prometheus]

Would astrobiologists be primarily interested in looking for biological signals in spectroscopy data? (I mean, is this the most readily available data to hand to detect extra-terrestrial life?). I know Raman spectroscopy can be used to this end.

[shirapasce]

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[CharonY]

Would astrobiologists be primarily interested in looking for biological signals in spectroscopy data? (I mean, is this the most readily available data to hand to detect extra-terrestrial life?). I know Raman spectroscopy can be used to this end.

 

Not necessarily. Other question include e.g.

- what are the basics of life?

- how did it originate on earth?

-how could it originate elsewhere?

- what other chemistry is feasible?

- what is the possible range of life?