Small Steps to Giant Leaps

This Hybrid Meeting is also available via the Zoom platform

Deciphering the glacial history of Mars in preparation for human missions

More than 50 years after humans first stepped on the Moon, planning is underway for humanity’s next ‘giant leap’ to Mars. It is a little-known fact that ice is abundant on Mars, and is a prime target for the first missions by human explorers. In this lecture, join me - a planetary glaciologist – on a visual tour of icy landscapes on Mars, as we explore how current missions are revealing the diversity, origins and histories of Mars’ glaciers and ice deposits, and the exciting scientific advances future missions could make by visiting them

Our Speaker Francis Butcher is a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Geography and Planning at Sheffield. A planetary scientist and glacial geomorphologist. Francis uses data from satellites orbiting Mars to analyse the landscapes generated by past and present glaciers on the Red Planet. In doing so, the aim is to better understand the history of ice, liquid water, and environmental change on Mars, and inform the scientific objectives of future robotic and human missions. Francis obtained a BA in Geography from the University of Cambridge in 2015 before moving to The Open University to undertake a PhD entitled 'Wet-Based Glaciation on Mars', which was completed in 2019. She moved to the University of Sheffield as a Postdoc using glacial landforms to reconstruct the flow dynamics of the former Scandinavian Ice Sheet on Earth (2019-2022). She then returned to Mars-focussed research by winning a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at Sheffield (2022-2025), followed by a UK Space Agency Exploration Science Research Fellowship (2025), and now a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2025-2033).

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