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David Klassen, PhD, Rowan University

Mars, Venus, and Earth appear to provide a planetary version of the Three Bears fairy tale so there is a lot of interest in trying to understand what makes these three planets so different. Additionally, Mars is perhaps the most Earth-like place in our solar system so there is a great deal of interest in the question of its habitability—both past and present. The key to understanding all of this is water. This talk will present work being done to track and measure the water content in clouds on Mars that can lead to a better understanding of its total water budget and water cycle which can point to more general ways planets “work” as well as describe the potential for life to access water. This studies being done use both ground-based and spacecraft near-infrared spectral maps and significant mathematical manipulation in order to retrieve water abundances and this talk will describe the data and techniques.