DPS 2009, Fajardo, Puerto Rico

I went to the DPS (Division for Planetary Sciences) conference in Puerto Rico, October 2009. Several years ago Dale Cruikshank and David Morrison (both from NASA Ames) distributed a fantastic CD-ROM full of 30+ years of historical DPS photos. Neither of them were at the meeting this year, but Dale suggested that I take some photos, and I did so. Thank you to everyone who put up with me walking around with the camera during the meeting. I know the flash is brighter in your eyes than mine!

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Sarah Stewart (Harvard) gives the Urey prize talk. Jonathan Lunine (LPL), current DPS chair, with Sarah Stewart. Sebastien Charnoz ponders the accretion of planetesimals. Ozgur Karatekin (Royal Observatory of Belgium) with Sebastien. Hal Levison (SwRI) is searching for test particles. Margaret Hanson (U. Cincinnati) believes you should submit your next paper to <a href=http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/aj>AJ</a>. Amy Simon-Miller (GSFC). Leslie Young (SwRI) observes her fabulous <i>mofongo</i> (Puerto Rican mashed plantains and seafood). I have similar feelings about my <i>mofongo</i>. Steve Chesley (r, JPL) and Bob Jacobson (l, JPL). I ordered the same as Steve but his came with extra tentacles. Dick French (visible by hand only) receives an enthusastic greeting from his red snapper. Matt Tiscareno (Cornell) chairs the rings session. Frank Spahn (Potsdam) agglomerates. Colin Mitchell (SSI) shows off Saturn's finally re-emerged spokes! Ulyana Dyudina (Caltech) celebrates her birthday by coming to a DPS meeting (woo-hoo!). Mark Lewis (Trinity) has a passion for particle simulations in the snack line. Ulyana with Shawn Brooks (JPL). Joe Hahn (r, SSI) with Alyssa Rhoden (Berkeley). Dan Durda (SWRI) dreams big. Sebastien pays rapt attention. Phil Nicholson (Cornell) and Joe Spitale (SSI). Joe Spitale. Sandy Ward. Jim Green (NASA HQ) talks at NASA night. Bill McKinnon (Washington University); Karl Hibbets (APL) on far right. Heidi Hammel (SSI). Candy Hansen (JPL, and new DPS chair). Jeff Moore (Ames) is always in style... Clark Chapman (SwRI). Gerhard Wurm (Muenster) attempts to accrete dust. Amy Lovell (Agnes Scott) and Laura Woodney (Cal State San Bernadino) invite all interested DPS members to join them at 'Proposal & Paper Boot Camp', where for three weeks nothing will happen except writing. Full-speed web access, but to ADS only! Laura, with the assistance of Yan Fernandez (Central Florida), graphically shows the Arecibo antenna configuration. Dave Schleicher (Lowell) is slightly embarassed. Peter Jenniskens (SETI) poses with a fragment of 2008 TC3 collected in Sudan. His talk was about the coolest at the whole meeting. This was the several-meter 'asteroid' detected to be coming straight toward Earth, about 12 hours before impact. This is the first time such a discovery has ever been made. He headed to Sudan soon after the fall, and with the help of Sudanese students, eventually recovered many many fragments scattered across the desert. Peter gives a quick talk to a school group touring the poster session. The teacher of the local Puerto Rican school group. Gloria Isidro (U. PR) shows off a bunch of braille-encoded astronomy books she put together. These are really cool. She has braille-ized pictures of the Orion nebula, the Arecibo telescope, moon phases, Galileo's original observations of Jupiter's moons from the <i>Sidereus Nuncius</i>, and so forth. Andrew Youdin is searching for a faculty position on the Moon. Dave Linick (JPL) talks to a group of Puertorriquenas about mission architecture. Courtney Coe (SSI) is very enthusiastic! Local students at the SSI booth. (Hay unas mas fotos de los estudiantes <a href=http://www.eaubergine.com/images/DPS09_Fajardo_estudiantes/show.html>aqui</a>.) More students in the lecture room adjacent to the conference, where they were being briefed. Students in front of the LCROSS poster. LCROSS crashed into the moon (intentionally) less than 24 hours later. Luke Dones (SwRI) pays rapt attention to the PDS Rings Node Advisory Council meeting. Bill Knopf (NASA HQ). Mark Showalter (SETI) runs the rings node ( Mitch Gordon (SETI). Josh Colwell (U. Central Florida). Imke de Pater (Berkeley). Jim Elliot (MIT) and Dick French (Wellesley) confer over a debris field of lunch products. Field trip: Kartik Kumar (Technical University of Delft) observes a spider web in <a href=http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/caribbean/>El Yunque</a>, a US Forest Service tropical rain forest just outside Fajardo. Kartik stars in a cologne ad, while at one of the waterfalls in El Yunque. Kelly Beatty (Sky & Telescope) with Glenn Orton (JPL). Dan Scheeres (U. Colorado) starts off the banquet. Amy Barr (SwRI) <p> Kurt Retherford (SwRI), Andrew Steffl (SwRI), and Amy Barr demonstrate that as far as conference banquets go, Candy Hansen thanks the DPS organizers, Mike Nolan and Ellen Howell (both Arecibo). Beau Bierhaus (Lockheed) probes for organic molecules. Nicole Albers (U. Colorado) inclines herself in order to better detect Saturn's F-ring ringlets. Jessica Lovering (U. Colorado) talks about grad school. Melissa McGrath (NASA-Marshall) and Bob Johnson (U. Virginia) give me proposal tips. Sebastien Charnoz wonders where the advertised post-banquet dancing will be. Fran Bagenal (U. Colorado) is extremely excited to announce that <i>at this very minute</i> Barack Obama is watching Jupiter from his front lawn! (Not to mention Joe Biden, who lives at the Naval Observatory, and has apparently also used those telescopes before.) Y. Chapman. Nick Schneider is all about dessert. Two Wards and two Bills. Bill Ward is in the center, forming the intersection of the sets. (Sandy Ward, Bill Ward, Bill Merline.) Live feed of Barack Obama! With Nigel Sharp (cut off at left; NSF) and Jim Green (NASA HQ). Kelly Beatty and the Obama daughters! Harold Reitsema (Ball) and Dan Scheeres discuss small liberal arts colleges in Michigan. Valery Lainey and Sona Hosseini (UC Davis). I get down on my knees praising Nick Schneider! Lisa Kaltenegger (Harvard CfA) gives Nick the eye. Now Tim Livengood (Goddard) gets the same treatment! Tim inflicts his famous Mauna Kea 'Monkey Brains and Liquid Nitrogen' story on an unsuspecting passerby. Lisa consults and decides to chair a session in the morning, rather than find the salsa and merengue in Fajardo that night. Erik Larson (U. Colorado), my paddling companion the next night and who, it turns out, lived on the same floor as me as an undergrad (but a decade later). ___ has recovered from the salsa. Frank Spahn is an early riser. Dave Trilling (Northern Arizona) discusses the literature of diplomacy. Michael Kueppers (ESA) cruises the poster session. Britt Scharinghausen (Beloit) and Sebastien Charnoz. Matt Tiscareno (Cornell) and Doug Hamilton (UMD) puzzle over an eccentric warped disk. Alessandro Morbidelli (Obs. Nice) applauds. Doug Hamilton demonstrates the optical depth of the new Phoebe ring. Ingrid Daubar (LPL) and Joe Spitale. Jani Radebaugh (BYU) + poster. Bobby Bus (Hawaii) and Ellen Howell (Arecibo). Humberto Campins (UCF) Marek Kozubal (Clay Center Observatory, at a high school outside Boston). This is cool -- Kelly Beatty called him up about 7 hours before the 2008 TC3 impactor hit the Earth. Marek got on the case, programmed in the crazy drift rate of the body, and set up his roof-top high-school telescope to monitor the light curve. They took several thousand observations that evening until the impactor headed toward Sudan. Paul Weissman (JPL). Frank Spahn with Erik Asphaug (UC Santa Cruz). I'm walking down to <i>Las Croabas</i> to kayak with the <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctiluca>bio-luminescent bacteria</a>. But before I do so, I order a red snapper and come across Barb Cohen, Denise Stephens, Jani Radebaugh, and Barb's sweetie Rob Coker. No photos from the bioluminiscent trip, but it was amazing. Last morning of the conference: LCROSS is set to impact the moon at 7:30 AM local time. Barb Cohen and ___ talk about the mission before we watch it live. A roomful of astronomers watch live streaming NASA TV. The image seen is taken from the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft, and we are watching LRO's Centaur upper stage, too small to be seen, as it is rapidly heading toward the lunar surface. John Spencer (SwRI) and Bobby Bus. A bit of applause after impact. (But where <i>was</i> that plume?) Start of the de-brief from NASA Ames. The people from AAS who run the meeting! Laronda, Scott, and Crystal (among a larger group). Julie Moses (LPI). Ashley Espy (U. Florida) rides back to the airport on the bus, while happily preparing to defend her thesis next month!

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Henry Throop

Last modified Thu Oct 29 22:39:17 2009