Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, 18-20 November 2003

Mars: the search for life

Objectives of the workshop

There is clear evidence that water existed in substantial amounts on the surface of Mars at some earlier epoch, thus strongly suggesting that life might also have developed on the planet. This possibility marks the red planet as a prime candidate in a search for life beyond the Earth.
The Workshop aims to:

  • Present the latest knowledge concerning Mars.
  • Favour the cooperation between scientists and research groups of different disciplines such as planetology, geology, atmospheric physics, chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, robotics, interested in the search for life on Mars.
  • Bring together scientists, spacecraft engineers and industrial partners for planning future Martian missions, such as ExoMars and MSL, relevant to exo/astrobiology.
  • Highlight the scientific, technical, industrial and philosophical benefits to the public.

The Workshop will be organized as a forum to maximize the advantages of interdisciplinary innovative discussions. Poster Sessions will be open during the whole meeting and Proceedings will be published after the workshop.

Workshop focus points

  • Terrestrial analogues
  • Lessons learned from extremophiles
  • Search for present Martian habitats
  • Water on Mars
  • Martian radiation environment
  • Martian atmosphere
  • Primitive Martian environments
  • Martian meteorites
  • Geology and landing sites
  • Missions to Mars (including manned missions)
  • Instrumentation
  • Planetary protection
  • Ground based simulation of the Martian environment
  • Education and public outreach

Workshop Committee

The workshop will be jointly organised by the European Exo/Astrobiology Network Association (EANA) and the Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid (CAB).

CAB

  • Luis Vázquez (Chair)
  • Ricardo Amils
  • Javier Gomez Elvira
  • Jesus Martinez Frias
  • David Fernandez Remolar
  • Ester Lazaro
  • Jose A. Rodríguez Manfredi
  • Juan Perez-Mercader
  • Franck Selsis

EANA

  • André Brack (Co-chair)
  • Charles Cockell
  • Luigi Colangeli
  • Pascale Ehrenfreund
  • Beda Hofmann
  • Alan Penny

Registration, registration fees and abstracts

Please send the registration form to mars.workshop@inta.es at CAB with REGISTRATION in the subject.
There are no registration fees.
Abstracts (one page maximum, A4 format) should be sent also to mars.workshop@inta.es with ABSTRACT in the subject. Deadline: 30 June 2003. The programme will be finalised from the abstracts received.

Travel funds

Travel funds will be granted in priority to undergraduate and graduate students presenting a poster. Applications including:

– a short letter of motivation

– a short CV (age, field of research, present position, Institution/University/Laboratory, address)
should be sent to André Brack, Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, rue Charles Sadron, F-45071 Orléans cedex 2 (brack@cnrs-orleans.fr) by June 30, 2003.