About the project
Both the understanding of alteration pathways and coordinated analyses of the surface of Mars from orbital and landed platforms with new and well-characterised spectral data will allow unprecedented interpretations of the climatic and environmental evolution for materials detected at new landing sites using our well-defined experimental parameter space for deriving conditions and evolution of environment and climate at Mars. Defining and characterising the ingredients for habitability at yet another planet will broaden our conception on the origin and evolution of life on our own planet, and prepare future investigations of forthcoming space missions in which several project members are highly involved.
We will determine mineral alteration pathways for natural and artificial terrestrial analogue materials under well-defined and controlled experimental conditions. The impact of varying environmental conditions will be tested to better constrain the geochemical aspect of habitable conditions on Mars, the prime target of this project. All natural and artificial rock samples and their alteration products will be characterised for the spectral library with commercial and dedicated spacecraft instrumentation (NIR, RAMAN, LIBS) under laboratory conditions, and where possible on in-situ field campaigns.
Follow the PTAL-project here: www.ptal.eu
Financing
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The funding is given under Grant Agreement number 687302. The name of the project is Planetary Terrestrial Analogues Library (PTAL).
The PTAL project started up in 2016 with an end in 2021.
Cooperation
For full list over participating researchers and their affiliations to the project`s partner institutions see the PTAL-project webpages.
- University of Oslo, Norway (coordinator)
- University Paris Sud, France
- University of Valladolid, Spain
