European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC
2008) to be held in Muenster, Germany, 21-26 September 2008

http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc2008/

(Doug went to this last year in Berlin, btw)

Lots of sessions on various topics. Also a dedicated session on contributions
to astronomy by amateurs (I think directed towards actual astronomers, but
perhaps they would engage UMSF efforts)

abstracts due June 1

I fact I checked up with Frank Sohl, the session chair - indeed amateurs
doing work with spacecraft data are welcome, not just telescopic data

Have at it - maybe see some of you there.



.....................
Ralph,
we find stuff related to Unmannedspaceflight.com would be well within
the scope of this session as well. So, go ahead.

Thanks, Frank

________________________________

Von: Lorenz, Ralph D. [mailto:]
Gesendet: Fr 23.05.2008 20:04
An: Sohl, Frank
Betreff: RE: Europlanet Conference #3 - Call for Papers - Session OA3 on "Solar System Observations"



If you are including in amateur astronomy the role of amateurs who
look at spacecraft data on the web, then I know a number of people
at Unmannedspaceflight.com that would be interested (the moderator
of that group went to Europlanet last year, in fact) Is this within
the scope of your session ?

I've got an abstract submitted to give another talk similar to last time.

Doug

IN

http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sess...8&s_id=6020

And Ralph is 5 after me, in the next session http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sess...8&s_id=6021

Nice one Doug, go get 'em!

Cool! Break a leg, Doug!

Ralph's lecture title is interesting: amateur obs as well for Titanian surface changes? Will he be presenting some of the fine work done by UMSF's own imagesmiths?

He is talking about atmospheric changes: changes in the haze layers and cloud outbursts. Surface changes would be too small to resolve from ground-based observers.

Ah, gotcha. I was actually thinking of something like Juramike's work, or some of the other Cassini image work that's been done here.

Atmospheric obs by ground-based amateurs would be fascinating in their own right; that obviously would require some serious aperature as well as truly state-of-the-art imaging technology. (Those guys are amazing these days.)

Hey!

I'm participating to the EPSC'08 and I'm glad that amateurs are also interested about the EPSC. I (or to be exact, our MetNet team) actually have a poster in poster tent. You are all welcome to see it and ask (difficult) questions.

Harri Haukka
MetNet System Engineer

I'll see you there Harri!

The full schedule book is up - http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc2008/ep...gramme_book.pdf

My current rough-plan for blogging is this...

Monday - Phoenix and Miniature Spacecraft.
Tuesday - Mercury.
Wednesday - Outreach
Thursday - Astrobiology and Terrestrial Analogues.
Friday - Moon.

If you see a paper or poster that especially interests you - let me know!

Doug

Doug it seems that the guy speaking after you cancelled, so go ahead and eat up his time :
http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sess...8&s_id=6020

As far as interesting talks, I would say that the GA2 session on Monday is a must. 6-7 talks about Titan, one about the plume composition on Enceladus, and another about sodium on Europa. Not exactly boring ....

Oooh, yeah...this poster caught my eye in the T8 poster session. It definitely gives a different interpretation:

P0045; EPSC2008-A-00029
Kochemasov, G.
Equatorial cross-cutting ripples on Titan - regularly warped
subsiding methane plains, not eolian dunes

Curious to know the evidence behind it.

-Mike

Does anyone know what is going on with TPS blog?...
I had some hard time being able to access it and read Doug's first posting from EPSC but I made it last night, but today I'm having the same problem...

Doug...Emily?...Where are you guys?...

Yeah - TPS is having server issues.

One entry is up. The next is submitted. Another two are getting written now

Ok!

...And don't drink all the beer tonight...you have a presentation tomorrow!

Good luck!

Sorry about the problems with the website. Something about sending Doug to Europlanet seems to bring the site down.

--Emily

"P0045; EPSC2008-A-00029
Kochemasov, G.
Equatorial cross-cutting ripples on Titan - regularly warped
subsiding methane plains, not eolian dunes

Curious to know the evidence behind it."

He has a history, worth following up. There's no evidence.

Phil

Give me questions to ask him - I may or may not make it to the poster session tomorrow (as it will be post-outreach-sessions and thus we'll be wanting to hit a restaurent ) but if I do - I'll ask him.

Doug

Coupla questions that spring to mind:
* Why do the "features" diverge around the bright highlands in a seemingly eolian manner (teardrop pattern)?
* If it's not eolian, would could explain the global teardop pattern have a similar global orientation (teardrop pattern always trailing to the east)
* Why would the plains be subsiding, but the brightlands not so evidently? (I'll bet I can guess the answer on this one)
* The ripple pattern seems to be the youngest feature on the planet (aside from clouds), what caused the geologically recent subsistence (I'll bet I can also guess this answer, also)
* What further observations/evidence would support a subsiding model compared to an eolian model?

[But please don't let science triumph over food. We've lost good people that way! ]

-Mike

The site is now (mostly) back up, as is the first of Doug's entries from today; a second one will follow soon, if, FSM willing, the server stays with us...

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001658/

--Emily

As Phil alludes, some context may be applied.

You tend to find one or more abstracts\posters by this chap at most planetary
meetings - not sure if I have ever seen the guy himself (maybe gets a colleague
to pin them up). They all have a contention (regardless of the planetary body concerned,
looks like now has Titan in his sights) of geometric regularity / harmonic series
in global-scale topography/geology (e.g. 'crystalline earth')

After reading the first couple of posters on this stuff I ceased paying attention.

If he had too much beer last night it didnt show

- great job Doug! Lovely presentation of all the results from all the UMSF talent!

Ralph (from the back of the room)

That's our Doug!

Oh well. It did sound interesting. I was curious if some of the mechanisms proposed would be applicable to the tectonic ridges (same mechanisms, different terrain).

The harmonic regularities of the EW tectonic ridges or putative NS undulations on Titan are pretty neat-o. I keep wondering if they are similar to the harmonics that have been proposed for Ganymede's grooved terrain:

Bland and Showman, LPS 37 (2006) Abstract 1417. "Tectonic resurfacing of icy satellites by periodic necking instabilities: application to Ganymede and Enceladus."

and the full paper:

Bland, M.T.; Showman, A.P. Icaurs 189 (2007) 439-456. "The formation of Ganymede's grooved terrain: Numerical modeling of extensional necking intabilities." [Pay for article: abstract here]

Except the wavelengths on Titan's features seem about an order of magnitude longer than those on Ganymede (the amplitude might be bigger, too).

-Mike


(Go Doug!)

Somehow, I ended up giving my talk twice. (it got moved, and I think some people arrived at it's orig. time to see it, so I was asked to do it again )

It went down fairly well - and maybe it's just me, but Lebreton and Foing seemed far more positive this year than last year.

Planetary Radio with.... ME (And Veronica)
http://planetary.org/radio/show/00000308/

Doing a tiny interview with Veronica was actually my highlight of the week. I think I might do things more that way in the future.

This : http://www.uniscience.tv/index.html?ac=1222724959 : was a really great project by Europlanet. Look for 'Pensive Doug' and 'Doug hanging around behind Tom Spilker waiting for the camera to go away' (http://www.uniscience.tv/monday1.html) in some of the videos

Oh - and I have three words for you...

Random
Space
Fact



Doug