Perseverance on Mars - Ken Farley - 3/10/2021
After eight years of development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars on February 18, 2021.
In this Watson Lecture, Professor Ken Farley will describe how this highly capable rover will investigate rocks deposited billions of years ago at the bottom of a large lake (long since disappeared), seeking evidence of possible martian life at that time. He will also look at how the rocks carefully collected by Perseverance during these explorations will provide the cargo for the first-ever effort to bring samples back to Earth from another planet.
About the Speaker:
Kenneth A. Farley is the W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry at Caltech and Mars 2020 Project Scientist for NASA/JPL.
About the Series:
Since 1922, The Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series has brought Caltech's most innovative scientific research to the public. The series is named for Earnest C. Watson, a professor of physics at Caltech from 1919 until 1959. Spotlighting a small selection of the pioneering research Caltech's faculty is currently conducting, the Watson Lectures are geared toward a general audience, as part of the Institute's ongoing commitment to benefiting the local community through education and outreach. Through a gift from the estate of Richard C. Biedebach, the lecture series is able to highlight assistant professors' research each season.
Watson Lectures are part of the Caltech Signature Lecture Series, presented by Caltech Public Programming, which offers a deep dive into the groundbreaking research and scientific breakthroughs at Caltech and JPL.
For more information about Dr. Farley's research: http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~farley/
For more information on the Watson Lecture Series: https://events.caltech.edu/series/watson
Produced in association with Caltech Academic Media Technologies.
©2021 California Institute of Technology