Dr. Philip Christensen of Arizona State
University will give a free, non-technical public lecture on "The Latest News from Mars," Monday evening, August 6th, from 7:30 to 9 as in the ballroom at the Double Tree Hotel in Reid Park, (445 South Alvernon Way, Tucson) as part of the 124th Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, taking place at the same hotel from Aug. 4 - 8. There is no charge for admission, but seats will only be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Dr. Christensen will describe the landing site for the Mars ScienceLaboratory (nicknamed Curiosity) and the landing events, together with any initial observations the probe makes about the intriguing Gale Crater, its landing site. [Right, artists view of Curiosity. Credit, NASA/Caltech/JPL] He will also touch briefly on the current prospects for the general exploration of the solar system. (This public talk will be held the day after the Curiosity lands on the surface of the red planet).
Philip R. Christensen is a Regents Professor of geological sciences and the Ed and Helen Korrick Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. He completed his Ph.D. in Geophysics and Space Physics at UCLA in 1981. His research interests focus on planetary surfaces, with an emphasis on Mars and the Earth.
[taken from the ASP announcement]
From the Mars-centric viewpoint, a symmetric planet-star subpattern has been found associated with the Mars dust devil of February 16, 2012. A similiar subpattern - with one substitution - was associated with the Huntsville, AL tornadoes of March 2, 2012. Diagrams for both are on http://astrosymm.com/tornadoes.htm
ReplyDelete