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In February, as part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival, AstrobiologyOU presented a panel to discuss the impact space has had on society and how the relationship between the two will change in the future.

This week saw the official kick off meeting of the Research England Expanding Excellence in England programme, which has provided the funding to expand AstrobiologyOU over the last few months. 

Twenty thousand years ago, the area of what is now the Ntwetwe and Sua salt pans in Botswana was submerged beneath a lake the size of Switzerland.

At least 7 members of the AstrobiologyOU group are attending the 2^nd British Planetary Science Conference, held in Oxford between the 13-15^th January 2020

In February of this year (2019), Ben Stephens, the lead research technician, and Dr Michael Macey went on a Europlanet funded research trip to the Western Saharan salt flats.

The Open University will be hosting the 26^th Molecular Microbial Ecology Group meeting (MMEG) on the 5^th and 6^th of December.

The OU in Scotland played host to members of the BEERS (Benefits of European Space Agency’s Exploration Roadmap in Socioeconomics) team (Manish Patel, Leslie Budd, Vic Pearson and Martyna Hodges) at an event which attracted guests from across Scotland’s space sector.

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The Open University OU) has received £6.7 million to expand its Astrobiology Research Group to address fundamental questions about life beyond the Earth.