How to look for traces of past life on Mars?

Audio 48:30

Image (NASA) of the planet Mars sent by the Mars Rover Perseverance, after landing there on February 18, 2021. © NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP

By: Caroline Lachowsky

50 mins

In search of traces of life on Mars… Feedback from planetologists in charge of the instruments on board the Rover Perseverance and the other Martian exploration missions… (Replay of February 22, 2021).

Publicity

Glad to see you on Mars today, exactly on the Jezero crater where

NASA's Perseverance

Rover landed in February 2021

. A staggering scientific, technological and human feat that we are going to share with the planetologist

Sylvestre Maurice

, scientific manager of Supercam (the eyes and ears of Perseverance on Mars) and the astrochemist 

Caroline Fressinet

. In search of traces of extraterrestrial life, this exobiologist collaborates in the various Martian missions by analyzing the data sent by space probes and by designing instruments to do so ...

Scientific co-manager of one of the on-board instruments, the astrophysicist 

Sylvestre Maurice 

(from the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology in Toulouse), takes stock of the specificities of this mission

(by phone) and

Caroline Freissinet

(on stage) CNRS researcher in planetary sciences and astrochemistry.

She works at the Atmospheres and Space Observations Laboratory in Guyancourt (LATMOS - CNRS / Université Versailles Saint-Quentin / Sorbonne Université).

→ The CNRS animated film,

Supercam of the eyes and ears

on Mars to discover

here

.

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