APEX is back! Organic–mineral associations in Jezero crater
We are delighted to welcome back our APEX seminar series with a talk from Dr Keyron Hickman-Lewis, Lecturer in Planetary Exploration at Birkbeck, University of London.
APEX is back! Organic–mineral associations in Jezero crater
10 Oct 2025, 13:00 – 14:00
Our Astrobiology and Planetary Exploration (APEX) seminar series returns this Friday 10th October at 13:00 GMT, featuring the following talk:
- Dr Keyron Hickman-Lewis (Birkbeck): Searching for life on Mars with the NASA Perseverance rover: organic–mineral associations in Jezero crater
An abstract for Keyron’s talk can be found below.
Please note the day and location for APEX this term: Fridays at lunchtime, 1-2 pm GMT, in Birkbeck room MAL 612, 6th floor of the Birkbeck main Malet Street building, and online (unless specified ‘online only’ below).
A hybrid (in-person and online) format will continue this term but, of course, we warmly encourage in-person attendance to support our visiting speakers.
Details of the forthcoming APEX programme can be found at the link below. The latest information will be advertised in advance of each meeting. If you are not on our regular mailing lists and are interested in attending these seminars, please contact joanna.fabbri AT ucl.ac.uk.
Talk abstract
Searching for life on Mars with the NASA Perseverance rover: organic–mineral associations in Jezero crater
Keyron Hickman-Lewis (Birkbeck, University of London)
Mars appears to have been habitable early in its history, more than 3 billion years ago; however, despite sustained efforts by numerous missions, evidence for life—even in rocks deposited during Mars’ earliest habitable periods—has remained elusive. Since 2021, the Perseverance rover has been exploring Jezero crater, once the site of an ancient lake on Mars, with the objectives of reconstructing the palaeoenvironment of the lake and searching for fossilised traces of life that might be preserved in the rock record. I will outline the major discoveries made by the mission in recent months, including a recent report of redox-driven organic–mineral associations in Neretva Vallis (the inflow river channel to Jezero Crater) that have been considered a “potential biosignature” with significant implications for astrobiology. With the future of Mars Sample Return uncertain, I will also discuss how answering the question of whether there was ever life in Jezero crater will absolutely require the study of these unique samples using sophisticated terrestrial laboratory instrumentation.
Links
APEX Seminars
The Astrobiology and Planetary Exploration (APEX) seminar series takes place this term on Friday lunchtimes, from 1-2pm, in Birkbeck room MAL 612, on the 6th floor of the Birkbeck main Malet Street building, and online. As in previous years, we will operate a hybrid (online and in-person) model for both speakers and attendees. Details of the forthcoming APEX programme can be found via the link below.
Some of our past APEX talks can also be viewed online.
Further information
Ticketing
Open
Cost
Free
Open to
Invitation Only
Availability
Yes
Other events in this series
APEX this week: It Came From Deep Space! What we've learned about 3I/ATLAS in the first 100 days
For this week's APEX seminar, we are delighted to welcome a talk from Dr Mark Norris, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering and Computing, University of Lancashire.
APEX this week: Hydrocarbon Hazes on Temperate sub-Neptune K2-18b
We look forward to the next talk in our APEX seminar series from Ruohan Liu, a PhD researcher studying exoplanets in the Astrophysics Group at UCL's Department of Physics and Astronomy.
APEX this week: Developing an agnostic model of photosynthesis in astrobiology
This week we are delighted to welcome a talk by Dr Chris Duffy, Lecturer in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London.
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