Aired April 20, 2021

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Jen Blank, an astrobiologist at the NASA Ames Research Center and a Research Scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. Jen has been a member of the Mars Curiosity science team and studies Mars analog environments on Earth, focusing on the potential of water-rock interactions to support microbial life. Dr. Blank is also the Principle Investigator of BRAILLE (Biologic and Resource Analog Investigations in Low Light Environments), a NASA PSTAR project to characterize life in lava tubes and use robots to look for signs of life there, on Earth, Mars, and other worlds.