Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

UNLV professors part of NASA Mars rover mission

Arya Udry

Claire Hart / UNLV

Arya Udry, shown here, is one of two UNLV professors taking part in NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission. UNLV professor Elisabeth “Libby” Hausrath is also among 13 scientists chosen to participate.

When Arya Udry was a little girl, she would stare at the sky and ponder the possibility of life beyond Earth.

So when NASA selected the UNLV professor to be part of its Mars 2020 rover mission, Udry was over the moon.

"At 32, to be selected so young for this mission is incredible," Udry said.

NASA chose Udry and 12 other scientists, including fellow UNLV professor Elisabeth “Libby” Hausrath, out of more than 100 applicants for the mission.

Udry and Hausrath will use a remote rover to search for signs of water and evidence of past life on Mars.

"We are now discovering that ancient Mars could have been habitable and thus could have harbored life in the past,” Udry said. “However, we have no evidence it actually happened.”

NASA's robotic spacecraft is scheduled to land on Mars in February after being launched from an Air Force base in Florida in July.

The spacecraft is equipped with sensors that can scan the Martian surface and detect organic material and matter impacted by water. It also has a camera with a zoom lens that can magnify rock surfaces.

Udry said she hopes her work will reveal more about the evolution of Mars.

"We just want to understand the geology of Mars as a whole to better understand how the entire solar system evolved," she said.

Udry, who grew up in Switzerland and France, moved to Knoxville, Tennessee., in 2010 to pursue a doctoral degree in Earth and planetary science at the University of Tennessee.

After receiving her doctorate, she moved to Las Vegas in 2014.

Her UNLV research team has studied all types of Martian rock, collaborating with researchers across the globe.

Like Udry, Hausrath is an associate professor in UNLV’s geoscience department.

Hausrath, who is from Boise, Idaho, has a dual doctoral degree in geoscience and astrobiology from Penn State University. She studies interactions between water and minerals.

Hausrath will use NASA's spacecraft to choose rock and soil samples to be transported back to Earth in a future mission.

The samples will be taken from a crater on Mars that scientists believe was once filled with water and returned to Earth in a 2031 mission.

The spacecraft, named Perseverance, will also help prepare for future missions by conducting experiments, including methods of creating oxygen in Mars' atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide.

"Even if Perseverance does not discover any signs of past life, it paves the way for human life on Mars someday," according to the NASA website.