Researchers at the Department of Space Studies are becoming increasingly involved in the new field of astrobiology. With NASA and NSF sponsorship, four separate research teams in the department are already undertaking work, and new efforts are already being planned. Among the projects underway already are new assessments of the conditions under which planetary evolution affects habitability, a search for amino acid precursors in the solar system, studies of cometary origins, and work to better define how planets swap material through impact cratering.