Cedar Amateur Astronomers welcomes you to the Eastern Iowa Observatory and Learning Center on Saturday, August 16 at 8 PM. Professor Valerie Payre from the University of Iowa Geology Department will present: "Exploring Mars to Understand Earth History."
Mars is both similar and different from Earth. Earth thrives with water and life, while Mars is dry and rusty. On Earth, plate tectonics have repeatedly reshaped most of its surface, erasing over a billion years of history after the planet's formation. What did the Earth surface look like 4.5 billion years ago after its formation? How did plate tectonics start? When –and how– did life blossom? These questions remain unanswered and spark a lot of debates. Unlike Earth, Mars lacks plate tectonics, thus exhibiting terrains from right after its formation to today. Exploring Mars enables us to explore a missing window of the Earth’s geological history. This talk will present the up-to-date data from spacecrafts orbiting around Mars and from Mars rovers, discussing traces of liquid water in the past, current existence of polar ice, and diverse volcanic activities. We will discuss whether life could exist on Mars and how Mars and Earth could have been very similar Mars and Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.
Weather permitting, after the presentation, volunteers will be operating our magnificent telescopes to view the night skies!
This event is in person and on Zoom. Go to cedar-astronomers.org/events for more information and a zoom link.
