Life on Mars in Hawaiʻi Brian Shiro

@brianshiro University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa UH NASA Astrobiology Institute

Mars: Earth’s Neighbor

2  

Missions to Mars 2018?

3  

Exploring Mars

Curiosity Rover

4  

Life on Mars?

Martian meteorite ALH 84001 5  

Water on Mars

6  credit: LANL

What is Permafrost?

7  

Permafrost on Mars

Permafrost on Earth

8  

Permafrost could enable human settlement.

9  

MarsOne

Provides drinking water, oxygen, rocket fuel.

Permafrost microbes on Earth survive conditions similar to those on Mars

10  (Nicholson et al. 2013)

11  

Mauna Kea

What’s an Analog?

Mauna Kea Summit Puʻu Wekiu

12  

Apollo  astronauts  Lovell  and  Haise  training  on  Mauna  Kea  (credit:  NASA)  

It gets cold up there!

13  February 2013

Cold enough for glaciers in the past

14  

Mauna  Kea  was  one  of  the  few  places  in  the  tropics  that  was  repeatedly  covered  by  glaciers  during  the  ice  ages.  (Anslow  et  al.  2010)  

And still has permafrost today

15  (Woodcock 1974)

Summit craters offer shade

16  

Puʻu Makanaka

And create microclimates that harbor permafrost on north-facing walls

17  

Thermal Infrared Image of the Crater Wall

elevation 4,200 m (13,800 ft)

PISCES   http://pisces.hilo.hawaii.edu/

Robotic field tests in 2008, 2010, 2012.

Looking for subsurface water.

18  

HI-SEAS: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation

A crew of six will spend 120 days living and

working here in 2013. http://hi-seas.org/

19  MDRS (Utah)

Mahalo!

Brian Shiro brian.shiro@gmail.com

@brianshiro

20  

Devon Island (Canada)