Is there Life on Venus?
Professor Ian Hawes and Professor Kathy Campbell about the recent Venus discovery.
Liquid water detected on Mars, can it hold life?
This week, the European Space Agency announced that radar data collected by ESA’s Mars Express point to a pond of liquid water buried under layers of ice and dust in the south polar region of Mars. There is a long way between finding liquid brine pools on Mars and finding life. However, there might be a similar place on Earth, the Blood Falls in Antarctica that originate from a hypersaline brine groundwater environment that supports an anaerobic microbial ecosystem sustained by chemical energy. Professor Ian Hawes from Waikato University explains the importance of the discovery from Mars.
Professor Ian Hawes, Waikato University
Like many, Ian came to Astrobiology by accident. A career-long research focus on Antarctic lakes, a network of collaborators and a conversation in a Chicago pub led to the revelation that some of these lakes, where microbes rule, contain analogues of the earliest known communities on Earth. Since then the theme of astrobiology has been […]
New Zealand to participate in a mission to the Pavilion Lake astrobiology analogue site
In June, Dr Ian Hawes, from Christchurch’s Canterbury University will be part of a team working at the Pavilion Lake analogue site. He will be part of an international, collaborative science and exploration team investigating microbialites – rocks formed by microbes – and at the same time developing protocols for real-time management of science activities in missions to near earth asteroids (NEAs) and more distant objects. Microbially mediated rocks have a special place in astrobiology since on Earth they are the very earliest evidence of life, and on other planets where life began and then stopped they may be the only evidence left. It all starts on 20th June. Watch this space for more details!