Chasing the Dust of a Distant World: Mars and its exploration

This meeting is Hybrid and also available via the Zoom platform

Mars stands as the next great horizon for human exploration, and today more than ever, the prospect of reaching it feels within our grasp.

Space agencies and private companies are directing unprecedented attention toward our red neighbour, envisioning a future where humans set foot on Mars. But what does such an ambitious journey truly require? And is Mars really the dream‑like holiday destination of our Solar System—or something far more complex?

Could Mars have once supported life? Could it do so in the future?

These questions lie at the heart of our scientific curiosity and drive many of the missions currently orbiting or roving the planet.

This talk will delve into these ideas, examining what we know about Mars, exploring past and potential habitability, and assessing the real-world feasibility of sending humans to this new frontier.

Our speaker Dr Beatriz Sánchez-Cano is an STFC Ernest Rutherford fellow and Lecturer at the University of Leicester, working mainly on planetary-solar wind interactions. Beatriz did her PhD in Spain at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, having several long-research stays at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands, and at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Italy. She then moved to Leicester in 2014 as a Post Doctoral Research Associate, where she became an academic member in 2021.

Her research work has significantly contributed to our understanding of the Martian ionosphere, through analysis of data from a range of instruments and missions, and through development of a widely used numerical model. Moreover, Dr Sánchez-Cano contributes to an array of space missions, such as the BepiColombo mission to Mercury where she is Guest Investigator, the Mars Express mission where she is CoI and in co-charge of the radar ionospheric observations, in addition to various current and future Mars missions, including leadership of an ESA M7-class mission proposal, M-MATISSE, devoted to the Mars’ plasma environment and currently in Phase-A of study at ESA.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Mexborough Church Hall, 58A Church Street, Mexborough, United Kingdom

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