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PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
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SUMMARY:Is Mars Habitable ?
DTSTART:20190220T170000
DTEND:20190220T183000
DTSTAMP:20260411T033627Z
UID:adf8419637e44092e2c89c2b0cfc656be2530d8d7a0951b29e2f641e
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Javier Martín-Torres\nAssessing the habitability of Mar
 s has been an objective of the scientific community for a long time\, but 
 it has recently become a sustained focus in light of data being returned f
 rom the planet and growing knowledge about life in extreme environments. T
 he Curiosity rover on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)\, one of NASAs fla
 gship missions\, analyses since August 2012 the Martian environment to ass
 ess whether Mars could have supported life. After more than 5 years of ope
 rations on Mars the rover Curiosity has acquired an unprecedented data rec
 ord of near surface measurements providing an invaluable ground truth abou
 t the environmental conditions on Mars. In particular Curiosity has found:
  (i) evidences for liquid water conditions on Mars\; (ii) preserved indige
 nous organic molecules in mudstone soil samples\; (iii) indigenous fixed n
 itrogen which may provide a biochemically accessible source of nitrogen fo
 r life\; (iv) manganese oxides on the surface\; and (iv) also detected met
 hane in the atmosphere at variable concentrations throughout the mission. 
 These discoveries\, together with other from previous and current missions
  to Mars\, have sparked speculation about the past or present existence of
  life on Mars\; and they have opened many scientific questions and challen
 ges. Moreover\, the future human exploration of Mars requires access to in
 -situ resources. Space agencies are requesting\, for the first time ever\,
  for ideas on In-situ Resources Utilization (ISRU) instruments that can ef
 ficiently extract key resources (water\, oxygen\, etc.) from Mars. But the
  international efforts of Mars surface exploration require a coordinated e
 ffort to respect the Planetary Protection protocols and to avoid the forwa
 rd contamination of Mars. This in turn requires\, updating our knowledge a
 bout the Martian habitability conditions.\n\nJavier Martín-Torres is Chai
 red Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Luleå University of Technolo
 gy in Sweden. He is also Visiting Professor at the School of Physics and A
 stronomy\, at the University of Edinburgh\, in the United Kingdom\, at the
  Spanish Research Council\, and Specially Appointed Professor at the Unive
 rsity of Okayama in Japan.\nJavier is the principal investigator of the HA
 BIT instrument that will fly to Mars aboard the ExoMars mission of the Eur
 opean Space Agency. He has been the scientific responsible for the REMS in
 strument in NASA's Curiosity\, which since 2012 investigates the habitabil
 ity of Mars\, and co-investigator of 7 space missions of NASA and ESA. He 
 has worked for ESA\, CalTech and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and ten ye
 ars for NASA\, from which he has received seven awards\, one for "Outstand
 ing contributions to the Investigations to the Columbia Challenger acciden
 t" and another "for the success of the operations and scientific exploitat
 ion of REMS/Curiosity ". Recently his team has won several European space 
 innovation awards\, including the OHB Innospace Challenge\, and in Novembe
 r a team consisting of two of his students will fly in the Fly Your Thesis
 ! Campaign of the European Space Agency\, after being one of the 2 Europea
 n teams selected in a European competitive process. In addition\, for thre
 e years he was director of the Planetary Atmosphere Group of the Center of
  Astrobiology in Madrid\, Spain.\n\nJavier Martin-Torres is the Principal 
 Investigator of HABIT (Habitability: Brines\, Irradiation and Temperature)
 . HABIT is one of the instruments selected by the European Space Agency (E
 SA) to be part of the scientific payload on the Surface Platform module of
  ExoMars 2020 mission.\nCheck out the HABIT video HERE.\n 
LOCATION:BC 420 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BC%20420
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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