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In a lot of the research i do,
I study how microbial life lives in the

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shallow subsurface of the earth,
and, in particular, I look at places where

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there's rock-hosted life that can be
sustained there

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as fluids circulate within those systems
and within the rocks.

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For me, it's really exciting that this
mission is going to Jezero Crater.

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And, in Jezero Crater we're going to
have so many different types of habitats

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that we think
could have been possible places that

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microbial life existed,
but, for me, the fact that this mission

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is going to go
to the crater rim, that's really

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analogous to some of the environments
that we're studying.

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So, to be able to look at the bedrock
there, and to look for evidence that

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fluids circulated within those rocks and were

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stored there, and potentially created a really large

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microbial habitat, and see
whether they preserve traces of life?

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That really connects well to
where we envision there might be

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actually an extensive biosphere on Earth
through all of its history, as well.

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So, the connections are really spectacular.

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One of the really exciting things when
you look at the Perseverance rover is

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to look at the instrument suite that's
been assembled together:

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between SuperCam, PIXL, and then Sherloc, 
is just three of the examples.

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Their imaging capabilities are
spectacular, so

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I'm really excited to see how the
combination of putting all of those together,

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and looking again at some of the really

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exciting exposures of rock.

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We might actually have our first

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opportunity to find the best evidence for
 preserved traces of life,

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and the thing that's also exciting about

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the way the mission's designed is that if
we find those samples where we think

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through a combination of all of these
ways that we're imaging the rock that

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we're finding overlapping lines
of evidence that keeps saying:

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this looks like it was alive
there's evidence that this was

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biologically inhabited. The fact that we
have the opportunity to cache those samples,

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and return them to earth in a future mission

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is a really unique aspect to
something we've never done before.