Chateando con la Ciencia: Jesús Martinez Frías
Chateando con la Ciencia: “From Earth to Mars: habitability and the search for life”- Thursday 15 June
On Thursday 15th June at 19:00h will take place the last session of the VII edition of the Cycle of colloquia “Chateando con la Ciencia”, organised by the Real Zaragoza Tennis Club with the collaboration of the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón, INMA (CSIC-University of Zaragoza) with the conference entitled “From Earth to Mars: habitability and search for life” by Jesús Martínez Frías, CSIC Research Scientist at the Institute of Geosciences of the CSIC and the Complutense University of Madrid.
Abstract: We are immersed in a crucial moment in the field of space exploration. Humanity is about to take the first leap towards another planet in our solar system: Mars. In fact, the Artemis mission aims to cover objectives beyond the Moon, complementing the results on Martian habitability that we are obtaining through the missions. By going from Earth to Mars, we will become an “interplanetary species”.
Since its origin, Mars has undergone an evolution of its geological, geochemical and atmospheric characteristics, with a significant loss of its geodynamic vitality, which has been imprinted in minerals, rocks and outcrops. Knowledge of its palaeoenvironments and habitability conditions is a bridge that links the past with the future of manned missions, with implications in the search for biomarkers and in our future projection towards the “red planet”. From Spain we are making an important contribution to the exploration of Mars, both in the field of planetary missions, such as the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, and in the research of terrestrial analogues, such as the UNESCO Global Geopark of Lanzarote and the Chinijo Archipelago.
Jesús Martínez Frías holds a PhD in Geological Sciences (1986) and is a Research Scientist at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in the Instituto de Geociencias where he founded the CSIC’s Meteorites and Planetary Geosciences Research Group.
His scientific activity is overwhelming and here we can only outline a brief sample. He is founder and President of the Spanish Network of Planetology and Astrobiology and of the Commission of Planetary Geology of the Geological Society of Spain. Member of the science teams of the Mars missions: NASA-MSL (Curiosity rover), NASA-Mars-2020 (Perseverance rover), ESA-ExoMars and collaborator of the ESA BIOMEX project (ISS).
Among his research, he has participated in about 40 national and international research projects (NASA, ESA, ICSU, NATO, IUGS/UNESCO) and contracts with companies. He is currently PI of the Madrid/IGEO node of the project “Red SIGUE-Mars: Science and Instrumentation for the Study of bio-geochemical processes in Mars”. He is the author and editor of 12 books and more than 350 publications, most of them in highly prestigious scientific journals (Nature, Nature Geoscience, Nature/Scientific Reports, Science, Geology, Astrobiology, Icarus, etc.). He has been Co-Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute Mars Focus Group, representative of Spain in the UN Committee on Natural Resources and Vice-Chairman of its Commission on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD). Since 2011 he has been a scientific collaborator of the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (INVOLCAN) where he is Head of the Planetary Volcanology Functional Unit.
For more details, seehttps://www.icog.es/redespa/index.php/jesus-martinez-friascv-abreviado/.
o access the talk, an access code must be requested at the following e-mail address: palacio@unizar.es.
