Sebastian Gautsch’s passion for nanoscience led to his PHD thesis with a focus on the development of an atomic force microscope and measurement concepts for characterizing martian dust and soil particles. The thesis which was written in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena was the foundation of the successful operation of an Atomic Force Microscope during the Phoenix mission to Mars in 2008.
In the upcoming talk Dr. Gautsch will give an overview of the results from the Phoenix Mission, illustrate how a microscope, smaller than a human finger, can function on Mars and which technological and scientific challenges had to be overcome.
The Phoenix Mission to Mars was launched in 2007 with two initial aims: exploring the geologic history of water to find traces of a climate change and analyzing the planets potential to sustain life by investigating the ice-soil boundary.
The venue of the exhibition, the SIMTech Tower Block, is located at Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) , a research Institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).