Nora Noffke, an Old Dominion University paleontologist, is contributing to an international mission that could help scientists answer one of humanity’s biggest questions: Was there ever life on Mars?
Nora Noffke, a geoscientist at Old Dominion University (ODU), recently joined an international team of about 100 engineers and scientists for a field trial simulating the European Space Agency’s (ESA) upcoming ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission.
The trial utilized a rover prototype placed in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, a landscape selected for its geological similarities to Mars. During the exercise, the team remotely operated the rover from the Rover Operations Control Center (ROCC) in Turin, Italy. The trial tested the rover’s autonomous navigation, hazard avoidance and scientific instruments that will help researchers examine the Martian surface and search for potential evidence of fossil life.
Noffke is a participating scientist with the mission’s Panoramic Camera, or PanCam, instrument series group. PanCam will serve as the rover’s “eyes,” creating 3D images and terrain models that give scientists geological context as they decide where the rover should investigate and drill. PanCam works in combination with Enfys—an IR spectrometer useful for determining the bulk mineralogical composition of outcrops and rocks—and with CLUPI—a close-up imager able to obtain very high-resolution photographs where individual mineral grains can be studied. The team integrated results from all these instruments to interpret the geological environment being explored.
Nora Noffke brings particular expertise to that search. Her research includes some of Earth’s oldest evidence of microbial life, including approximately 3.5-billion-year-old fossilized microbial mats found in sandstones of Western Australia. Those ancient rocks are comparable to the deposits scientists expect to analyze at the future rover’s landing site on Mars.
Scheduled to launch in 2028 and land on Mars in 2030, the Rosalind Franklin rover will carry a specialized two-meter drill that can retrieve ancient subsurface material protected from destructive cosmic radiation. The mission will use those samples, imagery and other scientific data to investigate Mars’ ancient environment and search for biosignatures of fossil life: both morphological (preserved on the texture of rocks) and chemical (in the form of possible biological organic compounds).
I am thrilled to have been able to join such a fantastic team and mission, says Nora.
For Nora and the university, this work places Hampton Roads expertise within an international scientific effort reaching far beyond Earth.