Newsletter 15-43

Issue 15-43, October 4, 2015

 

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  • NASA ADVISORY COUNCIL PLANETARY SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
  • UPCOMING DEADLINES FOR THE 47th DPS MEETING IN NATIONAL HARBOR, MD
  • DPS WOMEN IN PLANETARY SCIENCE DISCUSSION HOUR
  • THE FIRST DPS OPEN MIC NIGHT
  • NASA ASTROPHYSICS ASSETS WORKSHOP AT DPS
  • NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER TOURS AT DPS
  • VEXAG MEETING 13: NEW BLOCK OF HOTEL ROOMS
  • JOBS, POSITIONS, OPPORTUNITIES

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NASA ADVISORY COUNCIL PLANETARY SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING

 

The Planetary Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) will meet October 5-6, 2015. 
This Subcommittee reports to the Science Committee of the NAC. The meeting will be held for the purpose 
of soliciting, from the scientific community and other persons, scientific and technical information relevant 
to program planning.

 

The meeting will be available telephonically and by WebEx. Any interested person may call the USA toll 
free conference call number 844-467-6272, passcode 956102, to participate in this meeting by telephone. 

The WebEx link is https://nasa.webex.com/; the meeting number on October 5 is 991 244 147, password 
is PSS@Oct5; and the meeting number on October 6 is 994 772 851, password is PSS@Oct6. 

The agenda for the meeting includes the following topics:

–Planetary Science Division Update
–Planetary Science Division Research and Analysis Program Update

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UPCOMING DEADLINES FOR THE 47th DPS MEETING IN NATIONAL HARBOR, MD

 

National Harbor, MD, 8-13 November 2015 at the Gaylord National Harbor

http://aas.org/meetings/dps47

 

DPS members you are invited to attend the 47th Annual DPS meeting! 

 

* Important dates

 

8 October 2015 DPS 47 Regular Registration Deadline

http://aas.org/meetings/dps47/registration

 

 

And also:

– 5 October: Women in Planetary Science Discussion Hour Boxed Lunch Order Deadline

– 8 October: 47th DPS Hotel Reservations Deadline

-21 October: DPS Open Mic Night Submission

 

The DPS is grateful to our Meeting Sponsors:

 

Lockheed Martin

Universities Space Research Association (USRA)

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

Orbital ATK
Elsevier
University of Arizona Press
Southwest Research Institute

Space Telescope Science Institute 

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

Space Science Institute

AURA

 

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DPS WOMEN IN PLANETARY SCIENCE DISCUSSION HOUR

 

Join us on Tuesday, Nov. 10th from 12:00-1:30 pm for the annual DPS Women in Planetary Science event.  
Amy Simon will give a keynote address titled “Navigating Hurdles Throughout Your Career” and discussion 
will be formulated around the various topics that arise.  

 

Please feel free to bring any information/announcements related to women in astronomy and planetary science 
to share.  Due to the generosity of the DPS committee and a donation from the Space Science Institute, we will 
be able to provide boxed lunches this year.  All are welcome! 

 

Pre-registration at http://bit.ly/DPS_WIPS_2015 is required due to space limitations. Lunch orders must be 
placed by Oct. 5th.  The event will take place in the “Baltimore 3” room.  Contact [email protected] 
with questions. ​

 

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THE FIRST DPS OPEN MIC NIGHT

 

The DPS Open Mic Night allows our members to share their musical and other talents with their friends 
and colleagues.  Premiering Wednesday, 11 November from 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm, we invite all musicians, 
singers, story tellers, comedians, poets, spoken word enthusiasts or other performers (e.g. jugglers) to 
participate.  Come have some fun and strut your stuff! 

 

Sign up at  http://aas.org/meetings/dps47/openmic to ensure a spot and let us know what kind of equipment 
you need to perform.  You can decide to participate on-site as well, but signing up early helps us ensure the 
proper equipment is available. Performance slots will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. 

 

Deadline for submissions: 21 October 2015

 

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NASA ASTROPHYSICS ASSETS WORKSHOP AT DPS

 

Astrophysics Asset Workshop

Division for Planetary Sciences 

Tuesday, November 10th, 2015

Location: Azalea 1

Agenda and Abstracts

 

8:00 am – 8:30 am       ==       Welcome and Announcements

8:30 am – 9:00 am       ==       PDS (30 minutes)

9:00 am – 10:30 am     ==       K2 (90 minutes)

10:30 am – 11:00 am    ==      SOFIA (30 minutes)

11:00 am – 12:00 noon ==      Spitzer (60 minutes)

12:00 pm – 12:30 pm  ==       Lunch break 

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm   ==       HST + JWST

1:30 pm – 2:15 pm     ==       IRSA + NEOWISE (45 minutes)

2:15 pm – 4:15 pm     ==       Keck (2hrs)

4:15 pm – 4:45 pm     ==       IRTF (30 minutes)

 

The Planetary Data System (PDS) archives and distributes scientific data from NASA planetary 
missions, astronomical observations, and laboratory measurements. The PDS is sponsored by NASA’s 
Science Mission Directorate. Its purpose is to ensure the long-term usability of NASA data and to stimulate 
advanced research. All PDS data are publicly available and may be exported outside of United States under 
“Technology and software Publicly Available” (TSPA) classification. This presentation will focus on the new 
DPS roadmap activity and invite the users to join the team in demonstration at the NASA-PDS booth.

 

HST and JWST are the leading present and near-term space-based observatories, and offer exceptional 
capabilities for Solar System science. We will review current status and accomplishments of these missions, 
and present various science-policy aspects that are of interest for the DPS community.

 

The K2 mission makes used of the Kepler spacecraft and expands of its groundbreaking discoveries. 
The fields observed by K2 are close to the ecliptic planet and hence are thus rich in Solar System objects 
including planets, asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).  K2 has already performed observations 
of Neptune and its large moon Triton, 68 Trojan and Hilda asteroids, 5 TNOs (including Pluto) and 
Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring). About thousands of main-belt asteroids that fell into the pixel masks of 
stars have been have been serendipitously observed. Uranus will be observed in a future campaign (C8), as 
will many more small Solar System bodies. Observations of moving bodies as bright as Jupiter and as faint 
as V=23 have proved successful. K2 has an ongoing funded Guest Observer program and which has been 
successfully proposed to by members of the planetary science community. We present K2’s plans and 
capabilities for solar system science and will have presentations by members of the planetary science 
community who have used K2 data.   This workshop: 

* Contains information about the mission and its capabilities

* Discusses the proposal cycles and provides examples 

* Has community folks talking about their K2 science

 

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy makes observations at far-infrared wavelengths 
possible. In particular, the range of wavelengths from 30-300 microns is nearly completely obscured form 
the ground, including our best mountaintop observatories. By flying in the stratosphere above 95% of 
atmospheric water vapor, access is opened to photometric, spectroscopic, and polarimetric observations 
of Solar System targets including small bodies through the major planets. Extrasolar planetary systems 
can be observed through their debris disks, and forming planetary systems through the protoplanetary 
disks. We will brief the professional planetary science community on the capabilities of the observatory 
and its scientific instrumentation, the operation of the observatory, the proposal and planning process, 
and opportunities for involvement in the observatory itself.

 

The Spitzer Space Telescope is NASA’s Infrared Great Observatory and can operate until the launch of 
JWST in 2018.   100% of the observing time on Spitzer is available through annual calls for proposals 
and Director’s Discretionary Time.  The IRAC instrument provides unparalleled sensitivity at 3.6 and 4.5 
microns that will only be superseded by JWST. For solar system observations Spitzer supports non-sidereal 
tracking rates of up to 1 arcsec per second, as well as the ability to do shadow observations for moving 
targets.  Cycle-11 included more than 1000 hours of solar system observations studying the compositions 
of near-earth asteroids and comets, near-earth object characterization, and observations of Pluto in support 
of the New Horizons mission. We will present Spitzer’s capabilities, future plans, and some science results 
from previous and ongoing planetary programs.  

 

The Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) is the repository for science products from NASA’s infrared and 

submillimeter missions, including many large-area and all-sky surveys. IRSA’s portion of the workshop 
will describe our tools and datasets of interest to the DPS community, including: how to get moving 
object observations out of the Spitzer and WISE archives, the WISE Co-Adder (which can sum up
(NEO)WISE observations of moving targets), and the moving object “Pre-covery” tool.  We will briefly 
cover other tools, such as FinderChart, and other archives at IRSA, such as the Herschel and Planck archives.

 

The two W.M. Keck Observatory 10m telescopes regularly observe the increasingly dynamic and diverse 
body of objects in our solar system. Every US member of the solar system community has the opportunity 
to apply for time on the Keck telescopes through NASA’s call for proposals each March and September.  
Through this workshop, NASA and Keck Observatory seek to grow the Keck solar system observing 
community.  We will present Keck’s current and future instrument capabilities as well as recent solar system 
science highlights from high spatial and spectral resolution imaging and spectroscopy. Although much 
information has been gained through spectroscopy of planets, comets, and Kuiper belt objects, many current 
solar system observers also take advantage of the adaptive optics systems on both Keck 1 and Keck 2 to 
determine rotation axes and pinpoint orbits with high astrometric precision. Invited DPS members will 
share some of their recent Keck results pertaining to planetary atmospheres, comets, Pluto, and transneptunian 
objects. We will also provide information on how you can gain access to the NASA portion of Keck time, 
the only way that PIs from non Keck-member institutions can gain access, and highlight resources that are 
available for your use in the proposal planning process.

 

2:15-2:45  Keck Observatory Overview, instrument current and future capabilities, and planning tools 
 available for proposal preparation – Greg Doppmann and Marc Kassis 

2:45-3:00  How to gain access through NASA’s proposal process – Dawn Gelino

3:00-3:15  NIRSPEC reads Mars’ H2O history – Geronimo Villanueva

3:15-3:30  Chemistry of comets – Neil Dello Russo

3:30-3:45  Keck observations of planetary atmospheres – Imke de Pater

3:45-3:50  Complimenting New Horizons with Keck observations of Pluto – Eliot Young

4:00-4:15  Adaptive optics observations of transneptunian binaries – Will Grundy

 

The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) is a dedicated observatory for mission support and planetary 
science research, with 50% of the telescope time allocated to solar system observations.  Instruments 
currently available include SpeX (a low to moderate spectral resolution 1-5 micron spectrograph and 
imager),  CSHELL (a high-resolution 1-5 micron infrared spectrograph), MORIS (a CCD camera used in 
conjunction with SpeX), and visitor spectrographs covering 5-24 microns.  For information, 

see http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/Facility/.  We plan to commission iSHELL, a new cross-dispersed, 
high-resolution spectrograph for 1-5 microns, during semester 2016A.  We are also upgrading MIRSI, 
our 8-26 micron camera, and it should be available during 2017A.  The IRTF offers remote observing 
from any site with adequate internet connection, flexible scheduling (time slots as short as one hour), 
and daytime observing. 

 

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has observed all the planets in our Solar System, apart from Earth 
and Mercury. Earth is far better studied by geologists on the ground and specialised probes in orbit. 
Hubble can’t observe Mercury as it is too close to the Sun, whose brightness would damage the 
telescope’s sensitive instruments. In this presentation, we give a HST Status and Capabilities update 
with New APT Features for Solar System; followed by JWST/HST science policy presentation.

 

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NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER TOURS DURING DPS

 

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will offer on-site tours from 1-6 pm on November 12, 2015 
to US citizens and foreign nationals from non-designated countries (see list here: 
http://oiir.hq.nasa.gov/nasaecp/DCList_07-01-15.pdf) that are pre-registered by October 26 through 
this online form and are registered participants of the AAS DPS Meeting.

The community has expressed interest in visiting the center and seeing the latest developments on site 
for new/current missions, research labs, and other facilities. Goddard has one of the largest conglomerates 
of planetary science in the U.S. Tours at GSFC will highlight OSIRIS-Rex, LRO, the multiple Mars 
missions/developments, the Astrobiology Analytical laboratory, and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Please register here: https://ssed.gsfc.nasa.gov/DPSTours/RegistrationForm.html

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Stefanie Milam(stefanie.n.milam at nasa.gov).

We look forward to your visit.

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VEXAG MEETING 13: NEW BLOCK OF HOTEL ROOMS

 

The first block of hotel rooms for Venus Exploration Analysis Group 
(VEXAG) Meeting #13 were filled some time ago. A new block of sleeping 
rooms is currently on-hold at the Marriott Residence Inn Washington 
DC/Capitol Hotel, located at 333 E Street, SW Washington, DC 20024. 

You may contact reservations at 1-800-331-3131 – Be sure to mention 
the “NASA VEXAG Meeting” and the “Group Code NVE.”

You may also book your reservation on-line at: 

http://www.marriott.com/wascp  

– Choose arrival and departure date
– On the website under “special rate & awards”, select “group code” 
  and type in: NVENVAA
– Confirm reservation

A preliminary agenda is available at VEXAG Web-Site: 

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/

Current plans are:
27 October 2015 (Tuesday) – NASA and Mission reports 
                          – Poster/Social Event (PM)
28 October 2015 (Wednesday) – Venus Science and Technology reports
29 October 2015 (Thursday) – VEXAG activities (adjourn at mid-day) 

Bring a poster for the Poster Session – Tuesday, 27 October 4:00 PM, 
Senate Room, Residence Inn Washington DC/Capitol Hotel 

A key activity will be preparation of Science Nuggets with a 
tutorial by Jim Green on Tuesday morning, October 27th and 
presentations by attendees on Thursday morning, October 29th.

 

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JOBS, POSITIONS, OPPORTUNITIES

 

A) EXOPLANET ARCHIVE SCIENTIST

NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, Caltech, Pasadena, CA

content/exoplanet-archive-scientist

 

Application Deadline : November 1, 2015

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Send submissions to:

Anne Verbiscer, DPS Secretary ([email protected]

 

To unsubscribe visit http://aas.org/unsubscribe or email [email protected].

To change your address email [email protected].


Anne J. Verbiscer
Research Associate Professor
Department of Astronomy
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4325