While at LPSC I had the delightful experience of randomly stumbling across someone I could have been. There was this young woman - a first year college student who was a sophmore my credits (just like I was) - who was wearing a Space Academy Lanyard (I’m sure I have one in a box somewhere) […]

The second really interesting talk in the session on comparative planetology (that I wrote about here, and Pamela wrote about here) was about how plate tectonics  effects the “habitability” of a planet.
Plate Tectonics or Not: Lithospheric Stress on Terrestrial Planets and Super-Earths (O’Neill C.J., Lenardic A., Jellinek A.M.)
This presenter started by pointing out that plate […]

Friday morning Pamela and I both went to the session on comparative planetology. While we’d worked pretty hard to make sure we were never both in the same session, this was sort of necessary. We had to leave mid-session in order to get to the airport in time for my 2.15 flight home – so […]

Here are summaries of a few brief stories that combine Earth data and elsewhere data to get neat understandings of other worlds
1) Carrizozo Lava Flow (image: Google): Looking at Mars, we keep finding beautify lava flows that stream across the surface and end in sprawling lobes. Pouring over images of the Earth, we find […]

When someone feels comfortable making such a pointed statement in their openning remarks, I just have to quote them and blog them.
In this talk on mars historic river systems, Ted Maxwell presented a visually stunning story rich with labeled MOC images. This is a bloggers dream come true - I can actually find what he […]

We hit the last day of the meeting and I have something like 20 pages of notes to turn into blog posts. Unlike at astronomy meetings, I can’t write the blog post while listening to a lot of the talks. I’m taking notes, poring through imagery, and then googling the occasional geophysical term that I […]

My trip home was not nearly as much of an adventure as my trip getting to Houston. I can walk on my own now, without the aid of crutches, so this trip just involved a lot of waiting.
I waited for my flight from Houston to Dallas. I waited in Dallas to see if I could […]

This morning I’m sitting in a session titled, “Lunar geophysics.” A more accurate might have been, “Lunar Magnetic Fields.” So far the dominant theme has been trying to determine if the moon once had a nature magnetic field driven by a lunar dynamo, or if all magnetic fields fields found on the moon were induced […]

So this afternoon I attended this session. Pamela had previously suggested I go to the one on Mars impacts, but I was stubborn and thought this one looked interesting too. Reading over her post on it, I will admit to regretting it. My main reaction to this session was Wow… I’m not a geologist. Identifying […]

Let’s face it, impacts are cool. Big, small, it really doesn’t matter. Everyone likes a good geological train wreck , especially one not involving us.
I just finished listening to one of the most fast paced, data flying talks I’ve seen so far. In 15 minutes, dozens of PowerPoint slides flew furiously as J.C. Andrews-Hanna presented […]