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Choosing the Right Tools for the Job: Life-Detection Payloads for Mars

Organic molecules revealed in Mars’s Bagnold Dunes by Curiosity’s derivatization experiment

Perseverance rover reveals an ancient delta-lake system and flood deposits at Jezero crater, Mars

As a child, Amy Williams gazed at the skies and had the same thought many of us do: Is there life out there? Now, as an astrobiologist at the University of Florida, Williams and her students are actively working on NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance missions to find out if ancient life forms ever existed on Mars. In this episode of From Florida, Williams describes the research taking place that hopes to answer that question. Produced by Nicci Brown, Brooke Adams and James L. Sullivan. Original music by Daniel Townsend, a doctoral candidate in music composition in the College of the Arts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meet the astrobiologist and her students who are searching for life on Mars

Amy J. Williams is an assistant professor of geology in the Department of Geological Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Amy has been a member of the NASA Curiosity rover science team since 2009 and currently works with the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument team to explore the distribution of organic molecules on Mars’ surface. She also is on the NASA Perseverance rover science team as a Participating Scientist. Her research focuses on the interaction between microbial life, the geochemical environment and the rock record on Earth, and how to recognize habitable environments and potentially preserved microbial life on Mars and the outer world moons. She is a member of the Astraeus Space Institute.

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Persverance Rover

NASA Mars Missions

Mars Missions

Mars

Microbial Life on Mars

Habitable Environments on Mars

Curiosity Rover

Organic Molecules on Mars

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Amy J. Williams

Welcome to From Florida, a podcast where you’ll learn how minds are connecting, great ideas are colliding and groundbreaking innovations become a reality because of the University of Florida. Host Nicci Brown talks with UF faculty, researchers, students and administrators — thought leaders From Florida — who are moving our state, nation and the world forward.

From Florida

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Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

 The ability to imagine has given the human species the power to create, problem solve, empathize, and theorize. In fact, creative imagination can be found at the origin of every modern development throughout time. From medical advancements and the formation of governments to the establishment of the internet and the creation of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 — all at first were simply imagined.

So, it is not a leap to think that in establishing a space institute at the University of Florida, collaborators would continue to anchor the institution in the human element of imagination. That’s where space exploration began.

Ancient Greek philosopher Thales, later known as the father of Greek science and mathematics, questioned the true origins of the universe. Introducing deductive reasoning, Thales sought answers beyond the stories of gods and heroes. Three hundred years later, Aristotle theorized the geocentric layout of the universe with Earth at its stationery core and celestial bodies revolving around it.

In the early 14th century, the Italian poet Dante told the story of a vertical journey through the universe, reaching the stars in what he described as paradise. And in the fall of 1609, Galileo began observing the heavens with instruments he created to magnify his view up to 20 times beyond what the natural eye could see. Through his telescope, Galileo observed mountains on the moon, rings around Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter, all evidence that the universe did not revolve around the Earth, but the sun.

Inspired by words written in 1865 by Jules Verne in his novel, “De la Terre à la Lune” (From the Earth to the Moon), a 10-year-old Russian boy questioned, could travel be possible beyond the Earth’s atmosphere? Could Verne’s 900-foot-long space gun propel humans — or anything for that matter — through the bonds of gravity and into outer space?

Read more here:  Looking to know more about the UF Astraeus Space Institute or connect with Rob Ferl, Amy J. Williams or Stephen Elardo? Simply click on either expert's icon now to arrange an interview today.


Humanities play integral role in the UF Astraeus Space Institute

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  By Halle Burton

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover mission is no easy task, yet its distinguished team has discovered signs of organic molecules, containing chemicals known for making life possible on Earth. 

One of these long-term planners is University of Florida astrobiologist, Amy Williams. “Organics make up life as we know it,” Williams said. “Seeing organic carbon on Mars sets us up to understand if the building blocks for life were present on the planet in the past through the lens of how life evolved on Earth.”  Williams and the Perseverance team were published in November’s Science magazine for their organic molecules analysis, after finding numerous organic carbons on the Jerezo crater floor.

 
Through NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Perseverance is studying the crater with collected rock samples planned to be sent to Earth during the Mars Sample Return mission.

 
Upon further research and testing on Earth, these rocks could determine compelling evidence of past life on Mars.

Several of the rock samples indicate altercations by water, making scientists propose that a water-infused Mars could have supported ancient life.

 
The Jerezo crater itself serves as an intriguing site to study past life on the terrestrial planet. The creation of the crater implies Mars contained a primitive river streaming into a lake billions of years ago.

Now, Williams is no stranger to working with the detection of organic molecules on Mars. In 2015, she worked with the Curiosity rover which also found organic carbon on the inner planet.

 
With her work diversified on the Perseverance team, evidence is closer than ever to proving the omnipresence of organic carbon on Mars.

 
“Seeing a consistent story is always reassuring as a scientist,” Williams said. 




UF astrobiologist partakes in her second NASA mission to Mars

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 By Emma Richards, University of Florida From a young age, Amy Williams wondered if life existed beyond Earth amidst the dark abyss of space, stars and planets — a curiosity that years later landed her a career researching and exploring Mars.

Williams, an assistant professor of geology and an astrobiologist at the University of Florida, works as a participating scientist on the Perseverance and Curiosity Rover Science Teams and previously served as a postdoctoral research associate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

As an astrobiologist and geobiologist, she uses techniques from geology, microbiology and chemistry to search for life beyond Earth.

“Even as a little kid watching meteor showers with my family, I wondered if there was someone out there in the stars looking back at Earth.”  “Even as a little kid watching meteor showers with my family, I wondered if there was someone out there in the stars looking back at Earth,” she said in an episode of the From Florida podcast. “It’s been a passion of mine my whole career and now it’s the most amazing opportunity to serve on both of the active Mars rover missions.”

Williams’ journey to Mars began as a graduate student when a research professor gave her the opportunity to work on the NASA Curiosity mission. From there, Williams built her way up and is now a participating scientist working on day-to-day rover operations.

Williams also is opening doors for graduate students at UF to work on Mars research, helping upcoming generation of scientists follow her path. She is specifically interested in involving women and underrepresented groups in her work.

Based on her research, Williams said life on Mars, if found, will likely look less like Marvin the Martian and more like microbial life similar to bacteria on Earth.

Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012 and Perseverance landed in 2021. The rovers are searching for potential life on Mars by going to habitable environments and searching for evidence of water and essential elements that could supported such life forms.

Curiosity has spent nearly its entire mission exploring a large five-kilometer-tall mountain in Gale Crater known as Mount Sharp. The scientists can see Mars’ history and climate based on changes in the chemistry and sediments of the mountain.

 
As for Perseverance, the rover is exploring Jezero Crater, with emphasis on its delta, a geologic deposit that is formed when water from a river flows into a lake. Perseverance will help collect rock and sediment samples from Mars that will be the first brought back to Earth.

NASA is also working on a program to eventually send humans to Mars, which will likely take many decades; the first stage in the project will be returning humans to the Moon.

“But in the meanwhile, these robots, these rovers that we send to the red planet, they are our proxy,” Williams said. “And looking through the robot rover’s eyes, the images that are returned to us, I recognize this is the closest I will ever be to standing on Mars and looking up at these beautiful geological units, looking up at an alien world that’s so familiar because the tenets of geology apply on Mars, the same as they do on Earth.”

To hear more about the Amy Williams' Mars research, listen to the episode on From Florida at this link. Listen to other episodes in the "From Florida" series at this link. To learn more about her work, watch this video featuring Professor Williams: 

  

Dr. Amy Williams is an assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida and is a collaborator on the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover.

Searching for life on Mars with Dr. Amy Williams

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