Now in its ninth year on Mars, the Curiosity rover continues to reveal Mars as a once-habitable planet. Early in Mars' history, water persisted in rivers and lakes for millions of years, and even longer in the subsurface. A diversity of organic molecules remains detectable, although degraded, after billions of years. Curiosity has observed the Martian atmosphere over an unprecedented four annual cycles, witnessed a planetary-scale dust storm, and revealed the present activity of atmospheric methane. This talk will summarize the findings from the mission, the challenges of exploration, and what lies ahead.


About the Speaker:

Dr. Ashwin Vasavada is a planetary scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.  Currently he is the Project Scientist for NASA's Curiosity rover that began development in 2003 and successfully reached Mars in August, 2012.  He now leads the international team of scientists as they explore Gale Crater on the martian surface.  He has participated in the operation and analysis of data from several NASA spacecraft missions, including the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  He holds a B.S. in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Planetary Science from Caltech.