DPS Mailing #02-02: DECADAL STUDY NEWS; COMET II; WORKSHOP; JOB
PLANETARY DECADAL STUDY NEWS – FINAL PRIORITIES DEADLINE
Over the next couple of months, Dr. Michael Belton and the NRC Steering
Group will be wrapping up their work on the decadal study report
containing an overarching list of prioritized issues and
recommendations for solar system exploration in the period 2003-2013.
They are digesting a massive amount of input they have received from
the planetary community.
Your input on the final prioritization will continue to be accepted
through the end of this month (January). Please address the following
two questions:
(1) What are the three most significant discoveries of the past decade?
(2) What are the three most important investigations for the coming
decade?
The Planetary Community Decadal Website has now been modified to accept
and forward your input on these issues. Go to
http://www.aas.org/~dps/decadal/
A compilation of your comments will be posted on the above site at the
end of the month.
Mark V. Sykes,
DPS Past Chair
COMETS II – NEW SPACE SCIENCE SERIES VOLUME
CALL FOR CHAPTERS AND PARTICIPANTS
(Response must by received by February 10, 2002)
Dear Colleagues,
Since the publication in 1982 of the Space Science Series Book
“Comets”, there have been dramatic advances in cometary science.
Spacecraft have visited four comets, and the IR and millimeter ranges
have been systematically explored revealing a wealth of new molecular
species. Hundreds of transneptuniam objects, which are the likely
progenitors of the short-period comets, have been discovered during the
past decade. A new era is now opening during which coma samples will
be studied with spaceborne and ground-based instruments. Hardware
advances will continue to deliver new remote-sensing results at an
increasingly rapid pace. In addition, theoretical advances and new
computational resources allow complex systems to be modeled more
accurately than before, thus providing a much clearer understanding of
processes such as coma structure and evolution, nucleus activity, coma
and solar system nebula physics and chemistry, and orbital dynamics.
For these reasons, the time has come to begin work on “Comets II”, a
new book to be published in the Space Science Series of the University
of Arizona Press. A Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC) of 16
international members has been formed and has made plans for the
organization and content of this book. The editors of Comets II will be
Michel C. Festou, H. Uwe Keller, and Harold A. Weaver.
The purpose of this message, sent on behalf of the Editors and the SOC,
is to invite you to participate in the Comets II project. More
specifically, this message is a solicitation of ideas for chapter
topics and a solicitation of volunteers for chapter authors. If you
would like to recommend chapters for the book or would like to
volunteer to write a particular chapter, we would like to hear from you
NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 10, 2002.
We hope that you will consider contributing to this effort, as we
expect Comets II to be the fundamental source of information on comets
for both students and researchers during the next decade.
If you do not anticipate being an author, please consider serving as a
reviewer and complete the form found at the URL given below. If you
have any questions, you can direct them to the Comets II editors using
the contact information supplied below.
The detailed information notice for Comets II chapter authors and
contributors is available at:
http://webast.ast.obs-mip.fr/people/festou/comets2_information_notice.html
On behalf of the Comets II Editors and the entire SOC, we are grateful
for your interest and look forward to your participation in Comets II.
Best regards,
Michel Festou Richard P. Binzel
Editor, Comets II General Editor,
Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees Arizona Space Science Series
14, avenue E. Belin rpb@mit.edu
31400 Toulouse
France
Tel: +33 5 61 33 29 42
Fax: +33 5 61 33 28 40
E-mail: festou@ast.obs-mip.fr
WORKSHOP FOR NEW HORIZONS MISSION
NASA has selected the New Horizons mission to proceed with the detailed
design (Phase B) of a mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt. The
baseline mission will launch in January 2006, conduct an intense Jovian
system observation campaign during its Jupiter Gravity Assist flyby in
March 2007, fly by Pluto-Charon in July, 2016, and visit up to three
KBOs in order to sample the diversity of the Kuiper Belt. New Horizons
will hold a 3-day Pluto-Kuiper Belt workshop in Boulder during the week
of May 27 in support of mission science and broad mission participation
by community members. More information about the New Horizons project
can be found at: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ and
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
JOB ANNOUNCEMENT
Full Time, Tenure-Track, Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona
University. http://www.physics.nau.edu/
See also AAS Job Register: http://www.aas.org/JobRegister/
Melissa McGrath, DPS Secretary-Treasurer
submissions to: mcgrath@stsci.edu
