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 min

In search of traces of life on Mars ... Experience feedback from planetologists in charge of the instruments on board the Rover Perseverance and other Martian exploration missions ...

Publicity

Glad to see you on Mars today, exactly on Jezero crater where NASA's

Perseverance

rover landed on Thursday

.

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 on 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 specifics of this mission

(by phone) and

Caroline Freissinet

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

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

→ The CNRS animated film,

Supercam for the eyes and ears

on Mars, to be discovered

here

.

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