Title:
Exploring the Martian Underworld: Hunting for life in Martian lava tubes, and a future home for humanity?
Location:
Concordia University
1450 Guy St.
Description:
Due to the intensely hostile environmental conditions on the surface of Mars, the possibility of finding life – extant or extinct – is slim. Evidence shows that the volcanic past has likely left networks of lava tubes under the Martian surface, which provides a chance that bio-signatures may have been preserved. ATiLT (Astrobiology Training in Lava Tubes) provides students with an opportunity to plan and develop all aspects of a mission to explore the Lava Tubes on Mars (working with NASA), searching for evidence of life and possibly an environment to host a future human colony on Mars.
Speaker BIO:
Christopher Patterson is a Bioresource Engineering Student at McGill University, and a research student with ATiLT (Astrobiology Training in Lava Tubes), funded by the CSA and collaborating with NASA Ames Laboratory and SETI. Christopher’s work has focused on identifying possible landing sites and exploration sites for lava tubes on Mars, including analog studies with NASA at Lava Beds National Monument in the Mojave Desert.]]>
