News

NOTE - This lecture has now been booked out. Reservations are still available for the SA branch's September lecture. 

"LOOKING FOR ICE IN UNLIKEY PLACES' by Dr Graziella Caprarelli

Join us on an interplanetary trip to experience how scientists explore Mars to find buried ice and ancient frozen lakes

Sunday 14th August 2016 at 6 pm at Nova Systems, 27-31 London Road, Mile End South SA  5031

The present day Martian surface is cold and hyper-arid. Currently water ice is present at polar and sub-polar latitudes, and various models show that an ice ground-table is globally stable at variable depths. Geological, geomorphological and astronomical evidence however, indicate that ice was likely much more ubiquitous on Mars. In this presentation Graziella will highlight the physical conditions for ice and water stability on the surface of Mars and at depth, illustrate the astronomical and geological processes responsible for the...

The Mars Society Australia and the Space Association of Australia would like to invite you to a public event at the Mail Exchange Hotel 688 Bourke Street, Melbourne at 7pm on Friday 24th June.  

SpaceX’s recent announcement that it intends to land a Falcon Heavy-launched Dragon 2 spacecraft on the surface of Mars opens up many possibilities for landing heavier payloads on the planet. At the same time, the US Congress directed NASA to search for life in the outer solar system.  Both of these developments indicate a paradigm shift in both the way and what NASA explores in the solar system.  In 2012 and 2013 NASA's Ames Research Center undertook a series of studies using Dragon on Mars, defining possible payloads, which included deep drills for astrobiology...

Professor Malcolm Walter will deliver this year's David Cooper Memorial lecture as part of the Australian Space Research Conference.  The lecture will be held at 7pm at the Australian National University at 7pm.  For further details including how to book a free ticket, click here.  Download a lecture flyer (pdf).  The title and abstract for the talk are as follows.

THERE IS LIFE ON MARS… PROBABLY

Professor Malcolm Walter

Australian Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW

It is difficult to imagine any greater goal for science than searching for life beyond Earth. Everything we know about life is based on a sample of one: life on Earth. We can only imagine the consequences of discovering life elsewhere, provided it had a separate origin. That, ultimately, is why we are exploring Mars.

As recently as the 1950’s it was thought by serious scientists that there could be advanced forms of life on Mars – not little...