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SUMMARY:The adventures of the Curiosity rover at Gale crater\, Mars - Sanj
 eev Gupta
DTSTART:20200121T193000Z
DTEND:20200121T210000Z
UID:TALK136915@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Oliver Normand
DESCRIPTION:The search for rocks with potential to contain evidence for pa
 st life on Mars is dependent on reconstructing the palaeoenvironmental con
 text of sedimentary rock strata and identifying those rocks that record an
 cient habitable environments. We have been using NASA's Mars Science Labor
 atory rover\, Curiosity\, to explore the sedimentary archive preserved in 
 the 3.7±0.1 Ga crater\, Gale\, for ~6 Earth years and have documented a r
 ich array of clastic sedimentary rocks in lower Aeolis Mons (Mt. Sharp) an
 d Aeolis Palus (the valley between the north wall of Gale and Aeolis Mons)
 . Aeolis Mons is a 5-km-high mountain of stratified rock. Through detailed
  sedimentary\, stratigraphic\, and geochemical investigations using the ro
 ver and its tools and instruments\, we have been able to derive a robust m
 odel for sedimentary evolution of potentially habitable environments in Ga
 le at a time chrono-correlative with Earth’s early Archean. The sediment
 ary rock record in Gale indicates a climate with sufficient warmth and hum
 idity to sustain river systems and long-lived lakes in the crater. A curre
 nt debate is how Mars’ climate system could have achieved these conditio
 ns early in Mars’ geological evolution.\nFinally the talk will discuss t
 wo upcoming exciting missions to Mars launching in 2020 – the ESA ExoMar
 s 2020 rover mission and the NASA Mars 2020 mission that will collect samp
 les for future return to Earth.\n \nSanjeev Gupta is a geologist and plane
 tary scientist. Trained as a field geologist\, he is interested in reconst
 ructing processes and environments from the ancient rock record. He is a L
 ong Term Planner on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover mission
 \, where his role is to analyze ancient sedimentary rocks on Mars and dete
 rmine if the Red Planet could ever have been habitable for life. He is als
 o involved in the European ExoMars rover mission planned for 2020 and on t
 he science team of the NASA Mars 2020 mission.\n\nThe talk will be at the 
 usual location of the Wolfson lecture theatre in the Department of Chemist
 ry\, shown on the map here: https://map.cam.ac.uk/#52.197868\,0.125487\,19
 \,52.197816\,0.125093\n\nTickets are £2 or free for members. Annual membe
 rship (£7) and life membership (£12) can also be purchased at the event 
 – cash or card. The talk will be followed by refreshments outside the le
 cture theatre. 
LOCATION:Wolfson Lecture Theatre\, Department of Chemistry
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