**The 3rd European Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology**

**Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, 18-20 November 2003**

**Mars: the search for life**

**Objectives of the workshop**

There is clear evidence that water existed in substantial amounts on the
surface of Mars at some earlier epoch, thus strongly suggesting that
life might also have developed on the planet. This possibility marks the
red planet as a prime candidate in a search for life beyond the Earth.

The Workshop aims to:

-   Present the latest knowledge concerning Mars.

-   Favour the cooperation between scientists and research groups of
    different disciplines such as planetology, geology, atmospheric
    physics, chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, microbiology,
    genetics, robotics, interested in the search for life on Mars.

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-   Bring together scientists, spacecraft engineers and industrial
    partners for planning future Martian missions, such as ExoMars and
    MSL, relevant to exo/astrobiology.

-   Highlight the scientific, technical, industrial and philosophical
    benefits to the public.

The Workshop will be organized as a forum to maximize the advantages of
interdisciplinary innovative discussions. Poster Sessions will be open
during the whole meeting and Proceedings will be published after the
workshop.

**Workshop focus points**

-   Terrestrial analogues

-   Lessons learned from extremophiles

-   Search for present Martian habitats

-   Water on Mars

-   Martian radiation environment

-   Martian atmosphere

-   Primitive Martian environments

-   Martian meteorites

-   Geology and landing sites

-   Missions to Mars (including manned missions)

-   Instrumentation

-   Planetary protection

-   Ground based simulation of the Martian environment

-   Education and public outreach

**Workshop Committee**

The workshop will be jointly organised by the European Exo/Astrobiology
Network Association (EANA) and the Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid
(CAB).

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| # CAB                             | # EANA                            |
|                                   |                                   |
| Luis Vázquez (Chair)              | André Brack (Co-chair)            |
|                                   |                                   |
| Ricardo Amils                     | Charles Cockell                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Javier Gomez Elvira               | Luigi Colangeli                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Jesus Martinez Frias              | Pascale Ehrenfreund               |
|                                   |                                   |
| David Fernandez Remolar           | Beda Hofmann                      |
|                                   |                                   |
| Ester Lazaro                      | Alan Penny                        |
|                                   |                                   |
| Jose A. Rodríguez Manfredi        |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Juan Perez-Mercader               |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Franck Selsis                     |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

**Registration, registration fees and abstracts**

Please send the registration form to <mars.workshop@inta.es> at CAB with
REGISTRATION in the subject.

[There are no registration fees.]{.underline}

Abstracts (one page maximum, A4 format) should be sent also to
<mars.workshop@inta.es> with ABSTRACT in the subject. Deadline: 30 June
2003. The programme will be finalised from the abstracts received.

**Travel funds**

Travel funds will be granted in priority to undergraduate and graduate
students presenting a poster. Applications including:

-   a short letter of motivation

-   a short CV (age, field of research, present position,
    Institution/University/Laboratory, address)

should be sent to André Brack, Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, rue
Charles Sadron, F-45071 Orléans cedex 2 (brack@cnrs-orleans.fr) by June
30, 2003.

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