3rd European Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology - Mars: The Search For Life

http://www.issol.org/madrid.html

The 3rd European Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology
Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, 18-20 November 2003

Mars: the search for life

Objectives of the workshop

There is clear evidence that water existed in substantial amounts on
the surface of Mars at some earlier epoch, thus strongly suggesting
that life might also have developed on the planet. This possibility
marks the red planet as a prime candidate in a search for life beyond
the Earth.
The Workshop aims to:

* Present the latest knowledge concerning Mars.
* Favour the cooperation between scientists and research groups of
different disciplines such as planetology, geology, atmospheric
physics, chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, microbiology,
genetics, robotics, interested in the search for life on Mars.
* Bring together scientists, spacecraft engineers and industrial
partners for planning future Martian missions, such as ExoMars and
MSL, relevant to exo/astrobiology.
* Highlight the scientific, technical, industrial and philosophical
benefits to the public.

The Workshop will be organized as a forum to maximize the advantages of
interdisciplinary innovative discussions. Poster Sessions will be open
during the whole meeting and Proceedings will be published after the
workshop.

Workshop focus points

o Terrestrial analogues
o Lessons learned from extremophiles
o Search for present Martian habitats
o Water on Mars
o Martian radiation environment
o Martian atmosphere
o Primitive Martian environments
o Martian meteorites
o Geology and landing sites
o Missions to Mars (including manned missions)
o Instrumentation
o Planetary protection
o Ground based simulation of the Martian environment
o Education and public outreach

Workshop Committee

The workshop will be jointly organised by the European Exo/Astrobiology
Network Association (EANA) and the Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid
(CAB).

CABEANA

Luis Vázquez (Chair) André Brack (Co-chair)
Ricardo Amils Charles Cockell
Javier Gomez Elvira Luigi Colangeli
Jesus Martinez Frias Pascale Ehrenfreund
David Fernandez Remolar Beda Hofmann
Ester LazaroAlan Penny
Jose A. Rodríguez Manfredi
Juan Perez-Mercader
Franck Selsis

Registration, registration fees and abstracts

Please send the registration form to at CAB with
REGISTRATION in the subject.
There are no registration fees.
Abstracts (one page maximum, A4 format) should be sent also to
with ABSTRACT in the subject. Deadline: 30 June
2003. The programme will be finalised from the abstracts received.

Travel funds

Travel funds will be granted in priority to undergraduate and graduate
students presenting a poster.Applications including:

+ a short letter of motivation
+ a short CV (age, field of research, present position,
Institution/University/Laboratory, address)

should be sent to André Brack, Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, rue
Charles Sadron, F-45071 Orléans cedex 2 ) by June
30, 2003.