LCLU Senior Fellow
Adomas Valantinas
Adomas "Adam" Valantinas is a planetary scientist from Vilnius, Lithuania. His research combines remote sensing and geochemistry to investigate whether the crust of Mars was ever favourable for the emergence of life. As he puts it: "Looking for life beyond Earth is challenging, but Mars offers us a rare opportunity, nowhere else can we play the planetary detective with such a wealth of data, following the clues from a single rock to the entire globe."
Adam studied astronomy and physics at Vilnius University before completing a master's in geophysics at the University of Copenhagen, where he helped develop the mast camera calibration targets now aboard NASA's Perseverance rover, which is exploring Jezero Crater on Mars. His doctoral research at the University of Bern combined laboratory experiments with spacecraft observations to investigate the iron oxide minerals of Mars – geochemical time capsules that record an ancient, water-rich, and potentially habitable planet. He then held a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral mobility fellowship at Brown University and ETH Zurich, where he studied how water broke down Martian olivine, releasing hydrogen and creating the kind of chemical environment that sustains microbial life deep in Earth's crust.
At Cambridge, Adam will pursue one of Perseverance's most intriguing finds: the "leopard spots" in Jezero Crater, chemical patterns that on Earth would be read as fingerprints of microbial life. Working with Prof. Nick Tosca, he will test whether they can be produced by chemistry alone. Understanding these features, even if abiotic, will illuminate processes that may also have operated in Earth's deep past, and perhaps at the origin of life itself.
Valantinas A, Mustard JF, Chevrier V, et al. Detection of ferrihydrite in Martian red dust records ancient cold and wet conditions on Mars. Nat Commun. 2025;16:1712. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56970-z
Valantinas A, Thomas N, Pommerol A, et al. Evidence for transient morning water frost deposits on the Tharsis volcanoes of Mars. Nat Geosci. 2024;17:608–616. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01457-7