The Search for Life on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Mission

The Search for Life on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Mission

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.

Short Biography of 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. 

This is an in-person meeting at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Dr. Herd will be joining us via ZOOM.