The Search for Life on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Mission
Guest Speaker: Chris Herd
RASC Regular Meeting, Monday December 11, 2023
Zeidler Dome, TELUS World of Science Edmonton, 11211 142 St NW Edmonton
7:30 PM (MT): Guest Speaker – Chris Herd
After the Break: Astro-Imaging Corner and more!
FREE and open to the public.
This is a hybrid meeting. You may attend in person, or join remotely using Zoom.
Zoom link will be added soon!
The Search for Life on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Mission
Chris Herd, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta
The talk will provide an overview of the goals of the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission, progress thus far, and plans for returning samples from Mars.
Artist’s concept painting. NASA/JPL-Caltech
Chris Herd
Christopher (Chris) Herd has had the dream of studying rocks from Mars since the age of 13. After an undergraduate degree in Geological Sciences from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, he studied meteorites from Mars for his PhD at the University of New Mexico, and then worked at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Since 2003 he has been a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta. His research includes studies of meteorites of a variety of types, as well as ways of curating meteorites and future returned samples under cold and clean conditions. He is the curator of the University of Alberta Meteorite Collection—the largest university-based meteorite collection in Canada, and home to the world’s only meteorite curation facility that operates at cold temperatures. He is a Returned Sample Science participating scientist in the Perseverance rover mission.
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