Meetings and Seminars

By M.Sc. students Angeliki Christakopoulou, Cecillie P. Knudsen, Nanna Bach-Møller, Poul Kari Madsen

Presentation of ongoing projects on studying the growth-rate of bacteria exposed to variations in temperature, atmospheric composition, and level of UV radiation. Simulation of martian guilles and their relation to liquid water on Mars. Computation of non-equilibrium atmospheres exposed to biological activity.
Supervisors: Professors Morten Bo Madsen, Uffe Grae Jørgensen, Niels Bohr Institute and professor Anders Prieme, Institute of Biology, University of Copenhagen.

• Nanna Bach-Møller: 'Disequilibrium model for atmosphere simulations'
• Poul Kari Madsen: 'Exposing Microbes to the Martian Environment'
• Angeliki Christiakopoulou: 'Mars and Exoplanetary bacteria'
• Cecillie Patricia Knudsen: 'The Mars silumation chamber'

by M.Sc., PhD and Postdocs Emil Vogt, Kristian H. Møller, Pablo B. Valls

Computation and measurements of the chemical composition and reactionrates in Earth's and Venus'
atmospheres. Development of the instruments. Organic and non-organic molecules in exoplanet atmospheres.
Supervisor: Professor Henrik Grum Kjrgaard, Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen

• Emil Vogt: 'Vibrational Transitions of Isolated Alcohol'
• Kristian Holten Møller: 'Reaction Rate Coefficients of Atmospheric Reactions'
• Pablo Betran: 'Vibrational transitions: Experimental section'

By Professor Kai Finster, Institute for Bioscience, Aarhus University

Kai's research has span questions from freezing-point lowering proteins in bacteria, over habitability conditions of Mars, to the search for biotechnology signs on exoplanets. With start in 2020, Kai has received a grant from the Novo Nordisk synergy program 2019 to set up an experiment to study how microbiology influences the cloud formation, and hence drastically can modify the exoplanetary (and Earth's) energy balance. He will indtroduce this project, which he calls DRAMA, in the presentation, and discuss the role of microbial aerosols on cloud formation and how it can be experimentally simulated.

View the presentation: 'DRAMA: Deciphering the Role of Atmospheric Microbial Aerosols'

By Assoc. prof. Johan Andersen-Ranberg, Department for plants & environment, University of Copenhagen

Together with colleague Sillas Busck Mellor, Johan presents how algae might utilize perchlorate to form oxygen, and hereby potentially clean the martian soil for perchlorate. Mars has a relatively high abundance of reactive perchlorate (it is a salt, ClO4) in the surface soil, which may be a challenge for the first steps of the coming colonization of Mars. It is today believed that the high reactivity of ClO4 was the reason behind the reactions in the Viking experiment that initially looked like a signature of life.

By PhD students and Postdocs Bettina Meyer, Gorm Gruner Jensen and Sillas Boye Nissen

The "Atmospheric complexity" group is part of the section for biocomplexity at the Niels Bohr Institute. Here the group present an overview of their work on convection modeling and cloud formation in Earth's atmosphere. Clouds may form high or low in the atmosphere, and they aect the energy balance radically dierent dependent on where they form, and chaotic processes may lead to sudden and violent rain fall. Exoplanets will widely expand the parameter space and types of convection, cloud, and energy budget we will be able to study.
Supervisor: Assoc. prof. Jan Härter, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

• Silas Boye Nissen: 'Self-aggregation conceptualized by cold pool organization'
• Bettina Meyer: 'Modeling of coulds in the Earth Atmosphere: Turbulence, Convection & Cold Pools'

By PhD students Oliver Herbort, Dominic Samara, Patrick Barth

This session contains five presentations by Christiane Helling and Peter Woitke's group in St Andrews, which include the subjects of cloud formation, mantel compositions and biosignatures. Christiane is PI of our ITN double PhD degree network CHAMELEON. She will introduce us into the ideas of the network. Peter is likewise one of the central initiative takers of the CHAMELEON project, and he will talk about the protoplanetary disk part of the network. The three students will talk about water and cloudformation on exoplanets, as well as abot how lightning and high energetic radiation can tricker formation of pre-biologic molecules in exoplanet atmospheres as well as in the protoplanetary disks where planets are formed.
Supervisors: Ass. profs. Christiane Helling and Peter Woitke, University of St Andrews.

• Peter Woitke: 'CHAMELEON: Virtual Laboratories for Exoplanents and Planet-forming Discs'
• Patrick Barth: 'Quantifying lightning as source of prebiotic molecules'
• Dominic Samra: 'Mineral Snowflakes: Cloud formation on Exoplants and Brown Dwarfs'
• Oliver Herbort: 'Atmospheres of Rocky Exoplants: stability of liquid water and cloud predictions'

By Assoc. prof. Morten Bo Madsen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

Morten's group has been involved in instruments for the bulk of all NASA's Mars landings, including studies of the magnitic properties of martian dust, camera calibrations, Moesbauer spectroscopy, and site selections. It is also one of Morten's former students that build the rst version of the Mars simulation chamber which we are now expanding to be able to manipulate bacteria that may one day help us living on Mars and which may reveal the presence of life on remote exoplanets. Here he tells the story of how the Mars chamber came about and what to expect from the ongoing Mars 2020 probe Perseverance.

By Assoc. prof. Martin Engho, DTU Space, the Technical University of Denmark.

Together with his colleague Henrik Svensmark, Martin will tell about how cloud formation is aected by high-energetic radiation and how this radiation might trigger the formation of pre-biologic molecules. In collaboration with the CHAMELEON project, experiments will be set up to measure how lightning, which might be identied observationally in brown dwarfs and protoplanetary disks, facilitates the dust condensation and growth, and potentially can contribute to the rst pre-biological molecule formation.