BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover and the search for life on ancien
 t Mars - Nicholas Tosca (Cambridge\, Earth Sciences)
DTSTART:20230314T183000Z
DTEND:20230314T193000Z
UID:TALK195529@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Max Wong
DESCRIPTION:The successful landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover i
 n February 2021 set in motion one of the greatest international scientifi
 c endeavours of our time. Within the next ten years\, NASA and ESA will w
 ork together to return samples from a four-billion-year-old lake deposit
  on Mars in a major advance in our understanding of its capacity to have s
 upported microbial life. But could microbial life have emerged on ancient 
 Mars? Did liquid water persist long enough? Did the redox state of the sur
 face and atmosphere provide the necessary conditions to facilitate prebiot
 ic synthesis and an origin for life? If not\, how did environments on Mars
  and their evolution differ from that of the Earth? How can this inform ou
 r understanding of planetary evolution and the search for potentially habi
 table exoplanets? This talk will introduce a geological record that exis
 ts nowhere else in the Solar System\, discuss the scientific significance 
 of Perseverance’s landing site\, provide an update on recent findings
  of the Perseverance Rover mission\, and discuss why Mars exploration help
 s address key questions surrounding the origins of life on Earth.
LOCATION:The Winstanley Lecture Hall\, Trinity College\, Cambridge
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR