On Earth, extreme environments where life exists can serve as analogs to help us better understand and recognize habitable settings elsewhere. Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and deputy principal investigator for the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument on the Curiosity rover, will explore some of the challenging locales to which life adapts, from the deep sea floor to the edges of volcanoes, and look at how this can affect the search for life on Mars.

The Exploring Space lectures are made possible by the generous support of Aerojet Rocketdyne and United Launch Alliance.