Talk Abstract:

Mars orbiters, landers, and rovers have made extraordinary discoveries about the evolution of Mars and its potential for life. At this time, it is clear, that the potential of ancient life on Mars has increased based on several discoveries. There have been many observed signs of ancient liquid water: surface and underground. There are past geological environments on Mars that had reasonable potential to have preserved the evidence of life, had it existed. The detection of complex organics by Curiosity has increased the potential for preserving “fingerprints of life” that may be locked away in the rock record. These and other factors have led NASA, with the support of other space agencies, to mount a Mars sample return (MSR) campaign. The first mission of MSR is the Perseverance rover. Designed to core and store rock, soils, and atmospheric samples in sealed tubes for later return, Perseverance landed in Jezero crater in February 2021 near an extensive ancient river delta. Other missions will follow to bring these samples back to Earth for further analysis. In addition, Perseverance carried the Ingenuity helicopter as a technology demonstration which has been tremendously successful and may lead to other future ariel missions on the Red planet.

About the speaker:

Jim Green has worked at NASA for 42 years before retiring in December 2022. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Iowa in 1979 and worked at Marshall Space Flight Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, and NASA Headquarters. During Jim’s long career at NASA, he has been NASA’s Chief Scientist and was the longest serving director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division with the overall programmatic responsibility for the New Horizons spacecraft flyby of Pluto, the Juno spacecraft to Jupiter, and the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, just to name a few. Jim has received the Exceptional Achievement Medal for the New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system and NASA’s highest honor, the Distinguish Service Medal. He has written over 125 scientific articles in refereed journals and over 80 technical and popular articles. In 2015, Jim coordinated NASA’s involvement with the film The Martian. In 2017 Asteroid 25913 was renamed Jamesgreen in his honor.

Organizer & Presenter:

The event is organized by Agustin Moreno, Junior Professor in the symplectic working group at the Institute for Mathematics and the STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence at Heidelberg University, in collaboration with the STRUCTURES Office and Heidelberg University.

Contact:

• Agustin Moreno: https://agustin-moreno.com/contact/
• STRUCTURES Office: office@structures.uni-heidelberg.de

Copyright: Banner background image: NASA/JPL-Caltech