Institute of Advanced Studies

From Mars to Earth: a journey fostered by Science, Technology and Fascination

by Dr Paulo de Souza, CSIRO ICT Centre, Tasmania

This is an invitation to a return journey from Mars.

Our Planet and Mars have a common past. Eventually, they will share the same future and some of the incredible technological development for the Martian missions is already being applied on our Planet. This lecture travels across time gaining an overview on how our knowledge on Mars was built. Over the centuries Mars has captured our attention, first as a red bright point in the night sky, then with channels seeing by optical telescopes, revealing incredible geological features looking like Christ's face on its surface, or even sending pieces of possible fossilized bacteria in meteorites to Earth. Mars may have been able to support life at some point in the planet's history. Images and fresh scientific results were presented, especially those obtained by scientists working with the NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers mission. The lecture also discussed some of the instruments that equipped the rovers Spirit and Opportunity are being applied on industry, environment or even archaeology.

Paulo de Souza has a distinguished career in solid state physics with applications on space exploration, geochemistry, mineralogy, environmental sciences and industrial processes. Amongst many professional activities, he is a collaborator scientist for the NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission. Currently, Paulo works in Tasmanian ICT Centre for Marine Observation network project.

4 November 2009