Abstract:
The quest for life has been driving Mars exploration. To this date, we have sent an incredible fleet of robotic explorers to seek signs of life on the Martian surface. In this journey, we have so far not explored the Martian subsurface, which is likely the longest-living habitat on Mars—possibly still enabling habitable conditions in the Martian underground today. In this talk, I would like to discuss the potential for past and modern-day habitable subsurface environments on Mars and show our newest technological developments that would enable to constrain the potential for deep modern-day subsurface habitats. In particular, I will show (i) how Martian subsurface waters could be providing enough oxygen for aerobic respiration of microbes today, (ii) how we can study the local existence and global flow of liquid subsurface water across time with 3D geodynamic and global climate circulation models, and (iii) how we can use electromagnetic sounding to explore the Martian subsurface and seek signs of extant subsurface life today.

Speaker: Dr. Vlada Stamenkovic, NASA JPL

13 September, 15:30-16:30 at Mishima Hall (ELSI-1)