There will be a special Mars 2020 panel episode of Ask an Astrobiologist on February 2 at 10:00 Pacific Time (18:00 UTC). This episode had to be postponed last summer around the time of the launch of Mars Perseverance, and we’re excited to now be able to bring this panel to you within the month before the arrival of three new spacecraft at Mars, including the landing of Perseverance.

You can tune in on SAGANet or watch on the NASA Astrobiology Facebook page. You can ask questions in the chat or use #AskAstrobio on Twitter to ask questions and engage with other audience members.

The guests for this panel episode are Drs. Kennda Lynch, Frances Rivera-Hernandez, and Svetlana Shkolyar:

Dr. Kennda Lynch is an astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist studying life in extreme environments on Earth as models for characterizing habitable environments and searching for biosignatures on other planetary bodies in our solar system and elsewhere.

Dr. Frances Rivera-Hernandez is a planetary geologist with research focusing on using the sedimentary record to reconstruct what the surface of planetary bodies may have looked like in the past and evaluating whether they had conditions capable for supporting life.

Dr. Svetlana Shkolyar is a NASA postdoc whose research interest involves life detection techniques and biosignature protocols on rocky and icy planetary surfaces using multiwavelength Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy.

Learn more about the #AskAstrobio show and watch past episodes here: https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/

See more details and RSVP on SAGANet: https://saganet.ning.com/events/event/show?id=6441647%3AEvent%3A150761&xgi=04iocNWNQKNvyN&xg_source=msg_invite_event