Are we alone in our Solar System? Curiosity & Perseverance, Ingenuity & Dragonfly; these missions are linked to our search for life amongst our closest neighbours. In this talk, I will focus on astrobiology, the Curiosity and Perseverance Rovers and why we landed them where we did.  I will review the geology of the potential biosignatures Perseverance recently found, as well as the use of the Ingenuity Helicopter that Perseverance carried, and how that helps us with the upcoming Dragonfly mission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jared Krüger is a scientist and educator who grew up here in Edmonton, but has lived in Utah for the past decade. He has a varied background. In University, he studied Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, Ancient Near Eastern History, and World Dance. He got to participate in various research projects, including archaeology in Historic Nauvoo, studying glaciers in the Italian and Swiss Alps, manning telescopes at the West Mountain Observatory, and discovering viruses, two of which he named after the moons of Mars. He worked with respiratory viruses during the pandemic, and is currently working as an Adjunct Professor at Utah Valley University and an Educator at the Clark Planetarium. His specialties tend to lie in the crossover between different fields.