BrisScience: Mars...could there be life?

Event Details

Date:

Monday, 07 December 2015

Time:

6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Location:

Advanced Engineering Building

URL:

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Space. It's fascinated generations, inspiring scientists and artists alike.

This month our expert panel take an in-depth look at Mars and the future of space travel, while attempting to answer the age-old question... are we alone in the universe?

REGISTER for free tickets here: https://t.co/8hJ4j7xpsy

The panel:

Mark Rigby is the Curator of the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, his interest in Mars sparked around 1965 when the first successful spacecraft flyby of the red planet took place. He’ll look at the historic beliefs held about life on Mars, and the more recent use of spacecraft to search for evidence the planet has (or once had) suitable conditions for Martian life.

Professor Tamara Davis is a cosmologist interested in investigating new fundamental physics, including the properties of dark energy and dark matter, but has also published on astrobiology. She wants to know whether life on Earth could have originated on Mars.

Professor Gordon Southam is a geomicrobiologist, who uses both biological and geological sciences to examine the bacterial transformations of materials in the earth's crust. He will argue that we are Martian.

Professor Michael Smart is an engineer and Chair of Hypersonic Propulsion, and is working to revolutionise high-speed transport through clean burning, hydrogen-fuelled engines that could make access to space much easier in the future.