Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 15:25:34 -0500
Subject: DPS Mailing #01-49: Arecibo, DPS Prizes, etc.
Seasons Greetings DPS colleagues -
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|1) PRESS RELEASE: TERMINATION OF ARECIBO RADAR ASTRONOMY |
|2) DPS PRIZE WINNERS |
|3) MEETING ANNOUNCEMENTS |
|4) CONDOLENCE INFORMATION FOR MAYO GREENBERG |
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DPS PRESS RELEASE: NASA TO TERMINATE ALL RADAR ASTRONOMY AT ARECIBO
NASA has notified Don Campbell, Associate Director of the National
Astronomy and Ionosphere Center at Arecibo and Head of the Radar
Astronomy Group, that all funding for Arecibo radar studies will
be terminated on January 1. The large Arecibo dish is used to
characterize the surface properties and shapes of asteroids having
orbits that bring them close to Earth. It has recently discovered a
satellite around one of them, which provides information about the
asteroid's interior structure. Arecibo radar measurements provide
the most precise orbits for these objects, from which the best
assessment of their hazard to the Earth can be made. The research
is part of NASA's program to identify, by 2008, all objects larger
than 1 km with near-Earth orbits and to characterize a portion of
them. The U.S. Congress mandated this program several years ago.
NASA currently funds a number of search and follow-up programs to
find these near-Earth objects and to determine their orbits. With
no additional funding to meet the Congressional mandate, NASA has
carved $3.55M out of other portions of its planetary astronomy
research and analysis program in FY2002. The Arecibo program is
unique in the precision of its measurements and its ability to
characterize these targets, but pressure from increasing costs in
the search and recovery programs required to meet the 2008 deadline,
with no increase in funding for the program to do the job, has caused
NASA to cannibalize other programs. Arecibo is the latest victim.
NASA has invested $11M in the Arecibo facility to upgrade it for
carrying out radar studies of solar system objects as distant as the
moons of Saturn (in support of the Cassini mission), but now has no
funding to make the observations. NASA research programs have been
level-funded over the past decade while costs have increased and new
research programs have been inserted. The agency has recently committed
to increase funds for its research programs at the rate of inflation
and provide some new funding for astrobiology. In such a constrained
fiscal environment, NASA says that asteroid characterization "may have
to take a back seat" to NEO search and recovery because it "can no
longer do everything it is supposed to do". In the meantime, the rest
of NASA's observational astronomy program and mission support suffer
and a substantial investment in a national facility is abandoned.
The Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical
Society believes that the Arecibo program should not be terminated
to meet an arbitrary deadline. The Congressional language says that
these goals should be achieved "to the extent practicable"not at all
costs. The NASA NEO search program is already making excellent
progress.
In the long term we call on the Administration to work with the Congress
to increase the resources for non-astrobiology research programs in
NASA Space Science as they provide the knowledge base on which our solar
system exploration efforts rely.
The DPS is the world's largest professional organization dedicated to
the exploration of the solar system.
Contact:
Dr. Wesley T. Huntress, Jr.
DPS Chair
202-478-8910
[email protected]
Dr. Richard P. Binzel
DPS Vice-Chair
617-253-6486 or
617-253-9317
[email protected]
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DPS PRIZE WINNERS
We are pleased to announce the following winners of the DPS prizes
for the year 2001, to be presented at the Ann Arbor meeting in
October, 2002.
Urey Prize: Brett Gladman
Kuiper Prize: Eberhard Grun
Masursky Award: no award (there were no nominations)
Sagan Medal: Heidi Hammel
Press releases with more details will be available closer to the time
the awards are to be presented.
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MEETING ANNOUNCEMENTS
1) Debris Disks and the Formation of Planets:
A Symposium in Memory of Fred Gillett
Thursday - Saturday, April 11-13, 2001,
University Park Marriott, Tucson, Arizona
http://www.noao.edu/meetings/gillett/
Program outline:
1. History of the discovery
2. Progenitors
3. Debris disks
4. Descendants, and connection to the Solar System
5. Prospects: observational and theoretica
2) Space Telescope Science Institute May Symposium
ASTROPHYSICS OF LIFE
May 6-9, 2002
DEADLINE FOR EARLY REGISTRATION: April 8, 2002
The goal of the symposium is to understand the astronomical and
astrophysical foundations upon which searches for life in the
universe must be based, and which bear on the nature and origin
of life. Topics will include extrasolar planet searches and
properties, the physics of brown dwarfs, dust disks, star and
planet formation, interstellar and solar system chemistry,
galactic chemical evolution and dynamics, and cosmological
considerations. Our aim is to lay the astrophysical groundwork
for locating habitable places in the Universe. New astronomical
mission concepts will also be an important element of the
conference.
For more information contact: Quindairian Gryce, Symposium
Coordinator, STScI, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
Tel: (410)338-4970
e-mail: [email protected]
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CONDOLENCE INFORMATION FOR MAYO GREENBERG
For those who would like to send a condolence note to Mayo Greenberg's
widow, her address is
Naomi Greenberg
Morsweg 44
2312 AE Leiden
The Netherlands.
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Melissa McGrath, DPS Secretary-Treasurer
submissions to: [email protected]