Chromatophores

Life takes many shapes and Cromatóforos

many forms, each organism

suited to its home
Animals living in extreme environments
have adaptations that make them
successful survivors. These changes
usually take place over multiple
generations and can help organisms
reproduce and compete for resources.
Adaptations allow organisms to live in Common Cuttlefish
places where, to us, it seems impossible Hiding in plain sight, from both
to survive. predators and prey, cuttlefish use
special skin cells called
“chromatophores” to change colors
and camouflage themselves.

Create a creature that

hunts for food in the
pitch-black water of the deep
ocean. Find the alien world
where your animal would live
and put your design on
display.

Pearly Nautilus
A nautilus moves like a submarine,
adjusting the liquid in its chambers to
move up and down in the water.
Outer space, up close:
journeys amongst the stars
From Earth, scientists search for likely
places for life in our solar system.
Once we find a promising location,
we can send spacecraft to study the
environment up close. Sending
different missions to the same place
helps us understand more about a
planet or a moon. Whether it’s a rover,
a lander, or an orbiter, it has to be built
tough to function in harsh conditions.

Dragonfly
NASA’s Dragonfly drone will explore Titan, visiting towering dunes and deep
impact craters. The engineers who designed Dragonfly factored in Titan’s
dense atmosphere to their advantage, equipping it with eight rotors so that it
can hover and soar.

IceFin
To explore Europa’s freezing oceans, we’ll need a vehicle adapted to its harsh
conditions. One potential option is a robot called Icefin, which scientists are
already testing in Antarctica. Over 10 feet long and loaded with cameras and
sensors, it is able to act like a deep-sea oceanographer.
Light could reveal hidden
homes in faraway places
Scientists use spectroscopy to
understand what objects in space are
made of by seeing how they interact
with light.
Spectroscopy allows us to examine
environments that are too far away or
too extreme to visit. We can study
planets outside of our solar system,
light-years from Earth, worlds
surrounded by toxic gases,
and moons covered in ice.
Earth in a
different light
Spectroscopy doesn’t just
allow us to examine alien
worlds; we use it to learn
more about our own
home!
Exoplanets
Scientists are searching for
life outside the solar system
on exoplanets. Exoplanets
orbit other stars, like
planets in our planetary
system orbit the Sun. The
most likely exoplanets to
support life as we know it
are rocky, with Earth-like
atmospheres.

Invisible Light, Visible Clues

We can only see visible light, but there
are many other types, including infrared,
ultraviolet, and X-ray. These types and
others are invisible to human eyes.
Different types of light have different
properties—like color and brightness—
and all light can tell us information about
the materials it interacts with.