Jeff Cuzzi is prominantly quoted in the cover story on Saturn in the December issue of National Geographic Magazine. This article features very beautiful Cassini images of the planet Saturn and some of its satellites. 'The planet and its orbiting retinue, says planetary scientist Jeff Cuzzi of NASA's Ames Research Center, connects us to solar system structure and evolution on the grandest scale.'

Art Weber was elected to the International Committee governing the International Society of Rare Sugars. He gave the keynote lecture entitled 'Sugar World Chemistry: Sugars as the Carbon and Energy Source for the Origin of Life' at the Rare Sugar Congress-3rd Symposium of the Rare Sugar Society, Kagawa, Japan.

Chris McKay and Jennifer Heldmann traveled to the Mars Desert Research Station on December 9 to kick off a two-week simulated Mars mission in the desert of Utah. McKay is the PI of the Spaceward Bound program, a joint NASA-Mars Society project to train the next generation of space explorers. Heldmann is leading a crew of 5 students and teachers on the two-week Mars mission. While there she participated in a webcast via satellite link for the NASA Quest program (organized by the Education Division) in a program where middle school students have been working on lunar designs. This was featured on NBC 11 news. Dr. Heldmann was interviewed for an article that appeared December 19th in The Desert Morning News, the newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah regarding the fieldwork and Mars simulated mission they are conducting there. Link to article.

Drs. Virginia Gulick and David Des Marais and Jennifer Heldmann were interviewed this week regarding the recent discovery of active gullies on Mars. Heldmann was quoted by Science magazine on December 4th and the Boston Globe on December 6 on articles and both spoke to the observations suggestive of recent water on Mars on KGO-TV Ch. 7 (ABC) and KNTV Ch. 11 (NBC) on Wed Dec 6^th. In addition, Dave was interviewed by KPIX-TV Ch. 5 (CBS) and Virginia was interviewed by KGO a.m. radio on Dec 6^th and (CBS affiliate) KMOX Radio in St. Louis, on Thu Dec 7^th.

Two dozen students from St. Francis High School (in Palo Alto) visited the space science division on Friday December first. They heard talks by Jennifer Heldmann Dale Cruikshank, and Scott Sandford and were given a tour of the Astrochemistry lab by Max Bernstein and Jamie Elsila

Langston University professor Dr. Randy Hunt, along with NASA Pre-Service teacher education majors Ms. Shanika Bottoms and Mr. Donterrio Marzett visited with Dr. Lee Bebout (SSX) and Drs Andrew Mattioda and Jamie Elsila of NASA Ames Astrochemistry Lab (SSA). The information gained from this visit will be used to develop Pre-Service teacher NASA curriculum and aid in the development of a Future Student Scientist Literacy Curriculum and Academy. As a result of this visit, and a successful 2007 APRA (Astronomy and Physics Research and Analysis) proposal submitted by Drs Andrew Mattioda and Alessandra Ricca, Drs Mattioda, Ricca and Hunt, in conjunction with the Oklahoma Space Grant Consortium (of which Langston University is a member) and the SETI Institute are in the process of submitting a supplemental proposal to fund Education and Public Outreach (EPO) activities to the currently under-represented undergraduate student population at various Oklahoma Universities.

Dale Cruikshank is hosting the VIMS team meeting over at the SETI institute on Dec 7th & 8th and he will be presenting a talk entitled 'The analysis of the spectrum of hyperion.' Alan Meyer will give a presention about new insights into the wavelength calibration of the VIMS instrument. There will be ~25 scientists from all over the world who will be reporting on the current status of various analyses.

Larry Lemke is in Europe this week to attend and participate in the Don Quixote Mission mid-term review. Then he will travel to Houston, TX to participate in NEO Mission working group session from 12/06-08.

Chris McKay attended a meeting of COMPLEX (Committee on Lunar and Planetary Exploration) as part of Constallation Science activities.

Xander Tielens is in the Netherlands 12/2-12/10 to attend a workshop on Molecular Databases.

Diane Wooden is attending Kobe University Center of Excellence Program: 'Origin and Evolution of Planetary Systems' to present a lecture on 'IR Observations and Dust Mineralogy of Comets.'

Division scientist Jack Lissauer and Mark Showalter of the SETI institute were in Los Angeles the last week of November to attend the California Space Authority reception dinner and accept their Spot Beam Award, for their outstanding work in Space Science.

Brad Dalton gave a talk at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on November 3rd entitled "Application of Cryogenic Reflectance Spectroscopy to the Surface Composition of Europa." Afterwards he met with Cassini and Galileo Project Scientists to discuss methods of detecting ices and other minerals on moons and other small bodies in the Solar System. On November 7-8 he attended the Outer Planets Advisory Group (OPAG) meeting in Tucson AZ where he helped to formulate science priorities for future missions to Europa, Enceladus, and possibly Triton.

Tony Colaprete, Diane Wooden, and Jen Heldmann were interviewed on November 19 by a television crew from KQED in San Francisco for an upcoming program on the LCROSS mission.

Bob Haberle was in Madrid 11/27-12/1 to attend the 3^rd Rover Environmental monitoring station (REMS) science team meeting and then will head to Paris to meet with collaborators and sit on a PhD defence committee.

Andrew Pohorille attended a meeting on 'Sampling paths in molecular simulations algorithms for phase transitions' in France 11/25-12/03.

Carol Stoker will travel to Pasadena to attend the Constellation meeting on Mars sample return missions.

Lou Allamandola has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, the organization that publishes the journal Science. Each year the AAAS council elects members whose 'efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.' The honor of being elected a Fellow of the AAAS began in 1874 and is acknowledged with a certificate and a rosette. He honored for seminal contributions in astrochemistry that have forever revolutionized our understanding of interstellar molecules, interstellar ices, and the composition and chemistry of the interstellar medium. There are only 13 NASA civil servants who are listed as Fellows of the AAAS, including 6 at NASA Ames, so as you can see, this is a rare and distinguished honor.

Nov 16-17 Tom Greene attended a meeting of the Universe Working Group at NASA HQ. This is the group that advises the Astrophysics Division on R and A and related issues.

Bob Haberle, Jeff Hollingsworth, Melinda Kahre, and Lori Fenton attended the NASA Ames Mars GCM workshop hosted by Southwest Research Institute 11/14-16. The three day workshop focused on the science activities of the extended Ames Mars GCM community, and on the next generation of models now becoming available at NCAR and GFDL that can be adapted to Mars. One concept to come out of the workshop was the formation of a NASA Mars GCM Institute based at Ames that would be dedicated to the maintenance, development, and dissemination of state-of-the Mars GCMs. Such an institute would consolidate widely disparate activities, eliminate costly duplication of development efforts, and provide a tool for critical engineering design studies of future Mars missions.

Kim Ennico was at Cornell University 11/12-18 to test GRISMS with Terry Herter and Joe Adams of Cornell, Luke Keller from Ithaca College and other grism team members from UT Austin. In the Cornell labs, they tested three Si grisms made by UT Austin, and supporting slits, mounts and filter at 4K inside the SOFIA FORCAST instrument (which was built by Terry Herter and his team at Cornell) for her ASTID grant entitled: " Astrobiology on SOFIA: A Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Package for FORCAST."

Lou Allamandola has been selected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has been given this honor For his seminal contributions in astrochemistry that have forever revolutionized our understanding of interstellar molecules, interstellar ices, and the chemical physics of the interstellar medium.

The Chicago Museum Science creative team (of 8 people) visited Ames on Thursday 11/9 for help and inspiration as they develop an attraction called Mars Encounter.They will visit various labs and groups associated with the NASA Ames Astrbiology institute team lead by David DesMarias. Among those presenting will be Louis Allamandola of the Astrochemistry Lab and Tori Hoehler.

Dr. Chris McKay was at JPL to discuss science activities related to the constellation science office, and this week he is in Tucson, New Mexico to discuss planning for future missions to the Moon and Mars and other related ESMD activities.

Alexander Tielens was atLeiden University in the Netherlands last week as an member of a PhD thesis defence committee and this week is participating in science discussions at SRON a dutch institute for space research.

Dr. Dale Cruikshank gave two important public talks recently: a non-technical, illustrated talk on Wednesday, November 8th entitled 'The Planet Pluto: Maligned but Not Forgotten' at Foothill College as part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures and a Director's Colloquium entitled 'Complex Organic Matter on Small Bodies of the Solar System.' Dr. Cruikshank's key scientific contributions concern the detection and characterization of volatiles and organics on the surfaces of asteroids and outer solar system bodies. His discoveries, spanning four decades, confirm the early conjecture that common ices are dominant components of outer solar system bodies. In his colloquium, he will discuss his contributions to planetary science that resulted in his winning the prestigious 2006 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize for Planetary Sciences. To read more about what he does follow this link to his hompage.

Dr. Chris McKay is in France this week to attend meeting on Huygens atmospheric structure instrument as part of the ongoing data analysis for Titan results.

Scott Sandford addressed RAFT (Resource Area for Teaching) a Bay Area Educational non-profit with over 7,000 teacher members and gave a talk on Stardust on the evening of Tuesday Nov. 14^th to 70-80 people.

Chris McKay was Co-Author on a paper entitled 'Organic Haze on Titan and the Early Earth' in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Melissa Trainer, a NASA Astrobiology Institute postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder.You can read more about this work in the NASA Press Release, in the San Francisco Chronicle, ABC news online, CNN, National Geographic News, Discovery Channel or Spaceref.com.

On Sunday, November 5th at U.C. Berkeley's Andersen Auditorium Andrew Pohorillle debated (UCSC professor) Dave Deamer on 'Was the Origin of Life Inevitable?' This is a part of Wonderfest, the annual festival of science in the Bay Area http://www.wonderfest.org/

Mission Co-I Scott Sandford reports that the Origins Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security (OSIRIS) mission to survey an asteroid and provide the first return of asteroid surface material samples to Earth was selected for phase A study by NASA last week. Michael Drake of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is OSIRIS's principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., would manage the project.For more information follow this link to the report at SpaceDaily. This week Scott is at the 7^th Stardust Mission workshop to finalize the preliminary examination team (PET) reports.

Dr. Yvonne Pendleton and Dr. Mark Bollwinkel of the Los Altos United Methodist Church lead a joint sermon/discussion on science and faith on Sunday, November 5^th. A total of 1400 people attended during four services.

Tom Roellig, Mark Marley, and Tom Greene are all in Pasadena for the Spitzer conference on 'Cool stars, stellar systems, and The Sun.' Before attending that conference Dr. Greene was at the Keck Observatory science steering committee meeting and at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff presenting results on observations of protostars.

Robert Haberle is visiting Malin Space Science Systems this week learning how to process Mars Color Imager Context Camera images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Haberle is an MRO science team member.

Jamie Elsila visited two high-school classes at the East Palo Alto Academy on October 27 to discuss astrobiology and NASA missions.  She also presented a science talk about astrochemistry and astrobiology to 30 high-school teachers in Connecticut on November 7 via a videoconference set up by the NASA Ames Distance Learning Network program.

Louis Allamandola received the very prestigeous Presidential Rank Award for exceptional long-term accomplishments at a luncheon being held on Halloween in Washington, DC. Winners of this prestigious award are strong leaders, professionals, and scientists who achieve results and consistently demonstrate strength, integrity, industry, and a relentless commitment to excellence in public service.

This week Nathalie Cabrol and the High-Lakes team undertakes its yearly migration to the Andes Moutains until December 8. They are off, as always, to study the extreme lake environments that and host unique ecosystems. See http://highlakes.seti.org/ for more information on the science and updates from the field.

In a follow-up to the PNAS article we mentioned last week on which he was a co-author, Chris McKay was quoted in an article by Sharon Begley in the wall street journal.

Diane Wooden and Steven Charnley took part in the ISSI meeting on Origin and Early Evolution of Comet Nuclei in Bern Switzerland in late October. She was one of 30-40 scientists who attended and she gave a talk about what comet grains tell us about the early Solar System.

Jennifer Heldmann a talk on Oct 27 at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of Santa Cruz titled 'Gullies on Mars:Theories, Observations, and Numerical Modeling Results'

Yvonne Pendleton has been named to the Senior Executive Service (SES) and Chris McKay Science Technical (ST) rank and were among those honored at a reception thrown by Ames director, Pete Worden.

Navarro-Gonzalez and a team that includes Ames Space Scientist Chris McKay published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.  In the piece entitled 'The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromatography-MS and their implications for the Viking results' they conclude that Viking would not have detected the organics that indicate life had it landed in the Antarctic Dry Valleys, the Chilean Atacama or the Libyan deserts. The article has gotten attention at Astrobiology Science News, and the Mars rover blog and Dr. McKay was interviewed by science reporters including Ned Potter, National Science reporter for ABC News. For a related story see the NASA press release.

Robert Haberle and Kevin Zahnle attended the Mars sulfate workshop in Houston last week where they presented their work on 'Atmospheric Sulfur Chemistry on Ancient Mars.'  Other Division scientists included: Jeff Moore first author of 'Mars-Analog Brines and Evaporite Experiments: Implications for Sulfates.' Janice Bishop who was co author on 'Mšssbauer Spectra of Sulfates and Applications to Mars' and along with Ted Roush co-author on ' Looking Forward to CRISM.'

Jeff Cuzzi was interviewed by Sarah Bennington of Scholastic's Science World magazine, which targets kids in 6^th-12^th grades, for an article regarding the discoveries of new rings at Saturn by Cassini.

Dale Cruikshank and Yvonne Pendleton went to Moscow to attend the conference of the space research institute where Dale presented a talk entitled 'Icy Satellites of the Planets and the work of I.V. Moroz.'

Xander Tielens, Andy Mattioda, Tim Lee, Louis Allamandola, Jan Cami and Els Peeters attended the Workshop on Submillimeter and Far-Infrared Laboratory Spectroscopy [PDF] in Support of Herschel, SOFIA, and ALMA October 19-20, at Caltech.

SETI scientist Ginny Gulick was interviewed by NBC 11 about the HiRISE instrument after the MRO press conference on Oct. 16th. Dr. Gulick is a science Co-I on the HIRISE instrument team.

Brad Bebout took thirteen teachers from 8 western states on a tour of microbial mat hot house.  The teachers were here at Ames for the NASA Educator astronaut team (NEAT) workshop. These were teachers who were finalists to fly on a shuttle flight. They also learned about the Kepler mission from Janice Voss and SETI scientist Doug Caldwell.

Jamie Elsila presented two science talks about astrochemistry and astrobiology at a SETI-sponsored short course at the National Association of Biology Teachers annual meeting in Albuquerque.

Jamie Elsila will be reprising one of those talks again and Ginny Gulick and her student Alix Davatzes, will be presenting a workshop entitled 'Incorporating Mars Research In Your Classroom' at the California Science Teachers Association annual meeting in San Francisco. Each of these talks reaches dozens of teachers and gives them information about the latest space science research to inspire and instruct their students. Gulick will be talking about HiRISE, and some of the recent HiRISE images. Gulick and Davatzes will also talk about how teachers and students can get involved in suggesting image locations for the HiRISE camera via the soon to be released HiRISE public image suggestion facility, and how students can also get involved in the analysis of HiRISE images via the soon to be released HiRISE Clickworkers. They will be distributing draft education materials for evaluation from the HiRISE Learning and Activities website http://hirise.seti.org/epo .

NASA Ames Research Center hosted the LCROSS Site Selection Workshop on October 16, 2006.  Over 40 members of the scientific community gathered to discuss the optimal location(s) on the Moon which have the highest probability of harboring water ice.  Based on the inputs and discussion at the Workshop, a Site Selection Committee will synthesize these results and present the candidate sites to the LCROSS Project in late November 2006. The Workshop was organized by the Science Organizing Committee (Jen Heldmann, Chair; Tony Colaprete, Geoff Briggs, ARC Members).

Tom Greene reports that his recent observing run was earth-shaking, but not successful.  He was to have observed molecular hydrogen emission from embedded protostars with the Keck 2 but nature conspired against him from both above and below.  From miles below the island of Kona there was a big earthquake which actually moved the Keck 2 an inch! Follow this link to read about the damage to the Keck and see images. Dr. Greene was in the airplane when it hit but he felt aftershocks on Sunday and Monday night. Even if the earthquake had not rendered the telescope unusable, there was rain, so no observing could have been done anyway.

Dale Cruikshank officially accepted the Kuiper Prize last week at the Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting in Pasadena. For his Kuiper Prize Lecture Dr. Cruikshank presented a talk entitled 'Complex Organic Material on Small Bodies of the Solar System' at the Plenary session on Tuesday afternoon.

In addition to Drs. Cruikshank and McKay at least 18 other division scientists were first authors on presentations at DPSThey are listed in alphabetical order: Max Bernstein 'Near IR Spectra of H₂O/CH₄ And H₂O/CO₂ Ice Mixtures of Relevance to the Outer Solar System.' Anthony Colaprete 'An Overview of The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission', Dale P. Cruikshank 'Ethane on Pluto and Triton' Jeffrey N. Cuzzi 'Recent Highlights in Ring Structure, Dynamics, and Composition' James B. Dalton (who will also chair the session on Icy Satellites) 'Modeling Icy Saturnian Satellite Compositions Using Cryogenic Reflectance Spectroscopy' Sanford S. Davis 'A New Model for Water Vapor and Ice Abundance in a Protoplanetary Nebula' Anthony R. Dobrovolskis 'Spin states and Climates of Eccentric Exoplanets' Joshua P. Emery 'Thermal Emission Spectroscopy of Centaurs and KBOs' Jonathan J. Fortney 'Planetary Radii Across Five Orders of Magnitude in Mass and Stellar Insolation: Application to Transits' Jennifer Heldmann 'Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission: Opportunities for Observations of the Impact Plumes from Ground-based and Space-based Telescopes' Jack J. Lissauer 'Terrestrial Planet Growth in Circumbinary Disks' Rachel Mastrapa 'New Optical Constants for Amorphous and Crystalline H₂O-ice' Kathy A. Rages 'Neptune from Keck: Tracking Down the Scatterers' Ted L. Roush 'Automated Classification of Thermal Infrared Spectra Using Self-Organizing Maps.' Scott Sandford 'The Location of the CO₂ Fundamental in Clathrate Hydrates and its Application to Infrared Spectra of Icy Solar System Objects' Diane H. Wooden 'Is the Tail of 73P-B/Schwassman-Wachman 1 Chasing its Remnant Nucleus?' and Kevin Zahnle 'Earth after the Moon-forming Impact.'

In addition, division scientists Paul Estrada (SETI Institute), Dale Cruikshank and Jack Lissauer along with Toby Owen (U. of Hawaii) organized a workshop on 'The Formation, Composition, and Evolution of Satellites of the Giant Planets and Smaller Bodies of the Solar System' for the DPS meeting. For more information see http://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/dps/

Chris McKay was part of a series of public talk on Monday, October 9 organized by the planetary society, including a special presentation to Ray Bradbury:http://planetary.org/programs/projects/space_information/dpsevent.html

Scott Sandford received an award from and gave a presentation to the Amateur Radio Satellite (AMSAT) organization on Sunday Oct. 8th at the end of their 2006 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Meeting which culminated in a tour of NASA Ames. See http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/2006Tours.php

Orlando Santos went to to Pasadena October 10-11 to attend the JPL year end Planetary Protection review.

David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed astronaut Janice Voss about the Kepler mission on 09/26.

Ken Prichett, KTVU-TV (Fox) Oakland visited Ames to interview Ames scientist David Des Marais about exploration of Mars by the Mars Exploration Rovers on 09/28.

On Wednesday 27 September the opening of the MRO-CRISM telescope cover was confirmed at 9:52 PDT.  During the cover-opening event about 1.8 Gb of data were recorded by the CRISM instrument.  After return of the data to Earth at about 1:30 PDT the signal levels of these were evaluated and it was determined that the cover had fully opened.  Over the ensuing several days the CRISM instrument will be exercised to operate in each of the modes to be used during the remainder of the MRO mission.  This will entail obtaining data for calibration purposes, NASA programmatic goals, and science observations.  The instrument will not collect data from about 5 October to about 8 November due to testing of a spare instrument cooler followed by solar conjunction.  Ted Roush (SST) and Dave Des Marais (SSX) are Ames civil servants associated with CRISM. Janice Bishop (SETI) and Adrian Brown (NPP) associated with Ames are CRISM participants. For more detailed information see http://crism.jhuapl.edu/

Yvonne Pendleton reports that her ground based observing run at the IRTF for her Spitzer dense cloud project was successful despite two nights of bad weather.  She credits the expert staff at the IRTF and division scientist Tom Greene  for it going well. Dviision scientist Kimberly Ennico provided data reduction from afar, helping to determine what to observe next. Rachel Mason (Gemini Observatory in Hilo) and Michael Connelly (IRTF grad student)  helped observe the last nights and Jacquie Keane provided support from Manoa.  From Hawaii Yvonne went directly to NASA HQ Ð changing hats from astronomer to administrator as she flew.

Tielens and Lissauer were nominated for the Chambliss writing award for their senior undergrad/grad level text books 'The physics and chemistry of the insterstellar medium.'

The Conference Proceedings Book (NASA CP-2006-214549) for the 2006 Workshop on Laboratory Astrophysics and the Laboratory Astrophysics White Paper can be downloaded from the Workshop web page: http://www.physics.unlv.edu/labastro/ A limited number of paper copies are also available for distribution to interested parties. If you want a hard copy of the CP, please contact Farid.Salama (at) nasa.gov or (650) 604-3384.

Brad Dalton gave a special seminar on September 22nd at his alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. The title of the talk was "Automated Detection and Mapping of Ice and Mineral Distributions  on Solar System Moons Using Infrared Spectroscopic Techniques.

Jen Heldmann led a team to Lassen Volcanic National Park on Sept 21-22, 2006 to download data from instrumentation installed at the field site last year.  Heldmann is collecting data within a snowpack (e.g. temperature profiles, light transmission profiles, runoff events, air temperature, humidity, etc.) to understand the physical conditions within a snowpack to assess (a) habitability conditions and (b) potential for runoff and habitability in snow & ice deposits on Mars. This field data will be combined with theoretical modeling of snowpack behavior on Earth and Mars and interpreted in conjunction with spacecraft data of reported martian snow deposits from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Heldmann was accompanied in the field by Liza Coe, Brian Day, and Linda Conrad (NASA Ames Education Division) who collected video and audio footage for an upcoming podcast following the work of Heldmann. Three graduate students currently working in the Space Science Division at NASA Ames also provided field assistance.

Dr. David DesMarais attended a ground breaking event for the old faithful visitor center September 21-24. He negotiated the Ames contributions (via NAI) and verified and documented educational field signs in the park.

Dr. David Morrison delivered lecture to hundreds last week at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park Chicago. He spoke about impact hazards and thereafter took part in a cosmic disaster discussion moderated by Ira Flatow. This activity was associated with the Pale Blue Dot meeting mentioned in last weeks highlights.

In addition a film crew from the Educational Broadcasting System of Seoul, Korea interviewed David Morrison Max Bernstein for a television science special.

Dr. Brad Dalton gave a special seminar on September 22nd at his alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. The title of the talk was "Automated Detection and Mapping of Ice and Mineral Distributions on Solar System Moons Using Infrared Spectroscopic Techniques."

September 27-30 Thomas Greene will travel to Madrid Spain to attend the James Webb Space Telescope Mid-Infrared Science Team.

AIAA meeting: Members of the Space Science Division were active at the AIAA meeting, both as scientific speakers and presenting technology. Jeff Cuzzi presented the science part of the 'Pickering Lecture' a joint NASA/ESA presentation on Cassini/Huygens. As winners of the Director's Challenge for the AIAA Space 2006 Conference Inventor's Fair Scott Sandford's space-borne IR telescope ABE, Carol Stoker's Mars and Moon Underground Mole, and David Blake's Chemin (Miniaturized X-ray Diffraction and X-ray Fluorescence Instrument) were among those on display. Lou Allamandola chaired the sesson on Tuesday 9/19 entitled 'Deep Space Insights About Origins' and Santos the session 'Planetary Environments & Astrobiology'. Allamandola gave a talk entitled 'Cosmic Heritage of Solar System Organic Matter' Lissauer spoke on 'Formation of Gas Giant Planets' and Dr. Des Marais on 'Advancing Astrobiology Beyond Viking, Spirit and Opportunity.'

At the Pale Blue Dot III meeting - Searching for Life on Distant Worlds (Terrestrial to Astronomical Biosignatures) in Chicago September 17-20 Dave DesMarais chaired Session 2: Sources of Planetary-Scale Biosignatures. Ames speakers at this meeting included Tori Hoehler (Potential atmospheric microbial biosignatures), Max Bernstein (Discriminating between signs of life, signs of pre-biotic chemistry, and abiotic false positives) and Chris Potter (Linking Earth field measurements of biosignatures to remotely-sensed data). David Morrison will deliver a public lecture on Cosmic Impacts and Evolution.

September 9-23 Diane Wooden traveled to Munich to present an invited paper entitled 'Constraints from Comets' at the Max Planck workshop, 'from Dust to Planetesimals.' and then attend the Europlanet 2006 meeting where she will present results on ground based observations of the SMART-1 impact of the moon in support of the LCROSS mission and observations of comet 73P/SW-3.

September 17-19 Scott Sandford attended the first meeting of the Stardust sample allocation committee in Houston Texas.

Alexander Tielens is a Co-Investigator on the Spitzer team that aquired the exquisite SAGE image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy) that appeared in the Sept. 4th issue (p. 48) of Time magazine. The SAGE team has the honor of being the first to have a Spitzer image in Time magazine. This picture is a composite of infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange: 4.5-micron light is green; and 3.6-micron light is blue. The image can be seen online at: http://sscws1.ipac.caltech.edu/Imagegallery/image.php?image_name=ssc2006-17a.

Linda Jahnke, Kevin Zahnle, and Dave Des Marias are attending the Goldschmidt Conference in Melbourne Australia August 23-September 08. Dr. Jahnke will present work on 'Compound specific Isotope analysis of cyanobacterial pure cultures and microbial mat: effects of photrespiration' Dr. Zahnle will deliver a talk entitled 'Earth after the Moon forming impact' and Dr. Des Marias will present a talk entitled 'Potential lifestyles in ancient environments of Gusev crater, Mars and chair a session.

Diane Wooden is in Hawaii taking part in astronomical observation of the SMART-1 impact of the moon.

Chris McKay traveled to NASA HQ last week to attend the Constellation Lunar Architecture meeting.

Pendleton and Sandford win Ames honor awards: Space Science Division Scientists Scott Sandford and Yvonne Pendleton were among those announced (on Monday August 28^th) as Ames Honor awardees for 2006. Dr. Pendleton won (along with Wendy Dolci) in the category of community service volunteer for their work relating to Katrina relief for Stennis families, and Dr. Sanford won in the category of scientist for his work on the Stardust Mission, for which he served as a Co-I and head of the organics preliminary examination team.

Right Handed Sweets: Arthur L. Weber (SSX) published a paper this week in the prestigious journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper entitled 'The peptide-catalyzed stereospecific synthesis of tetroses: A possible mode for prebiotic molecular evolution' proposed a potential explanation for how chirality (molecular handedness) may have been introduced into the sugar chemistry of life. All life today employs 'right handed' sugars, they are fundamental to life on Earth, being components of our DNA.  See http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/34/12713 for the full text of the article. The image at right is from this paper and shows some of the sugar complexes.

Scott Sandford's space-borne IR telescope ABE, Carol Stoker's Mars and Moon Underground Mole, and David Blake's Chemin (Miniaturized X-ray Diffraction and X-ray Fluorescence Instrument) among the winners of the local inventor's fair and will be on display at the upcoming AIAA meeting in San Jose in September.

A lengthy encylopedia article on the interior structure of giant planets by Mark Marley and Jonathan Fortney has been accepted for publication in the second edition of 'The Encylopedia of the Solar System.' This updates an article written by Marley for the first edition by including data on extrasolar giant planets and new results on the interior structures of Jupiter and Saturn. Marley also participated in the Cassini Data Analysis Program panel review in San Diego, serving on the 'Atmospheres' sub panel.

Cassini Rings Interdisciplinary scientist Jeff Cuzzi led a three-day Cassini Ring Science Workshop in Whitefish, Montana in early August involving 37 Cassini scientists from the US and Europe in the most extensive discussion of Saturn's rings in over 20 years. Reportable highlights include the ongoing collisions within a probably chaotic belt of moonlets lying just outside Saturn's main rings; implications of new observations that the ring composition began as a mix of reddish, perhaps organic-rich ices and have become darker and more neutral in color as they become increasingly polluted by meteoroids; evidence that local, canted, transient gravitational instabilities pervade much more of the main rings than previously suspected; evidence that the innermost or D ring suffered some event 22 years ago that created a tilted sheet of material that now continues to wrap up into a spiral pattern; and modeling results showing that ring photometry is affected by local ring physical structure as well as by particle albedo. More 'spokes' have been observed in the B ring, and theories are coming to grips with their puzzling absence throughout most of the mission thus far.

At the council meeting in Zurich the Council of the Meteoritical Society named Scott Sandford a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society. Dr. Sandford won this honor because of his pioneering work in the study of cometary and asteroidal dust, his work on the connection between interstellar processes and meteorites, and his tireless service as an editor of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

Dr. Johnathan Fortney has been selected for NASA's first class of Early Career Fellows in Planetary Science. He joins an elite group of 12 fellows, one or two in each of seven participating Planetary Science research programs. This honor was a result of a proposal by Dr. Fortney entitled 'A Consistent Evolutionary History for Jupiter and Saturn' that he submitted to the Outer Planets Research Program in 2005. This is a great honor and we are very proud to have Dr. Fortney working here at NASA Ames.

The telescope allocation committee at National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) informs us that three of our astronomers have been awarded time at NOAO-coordinated facilities during the August 2006-Jan 2007 semester.These include Uma Gorti, David Hollenbach, and Ralph Shuping.

Many scientists from the Space Science and Astrobiology Division are participating in the Next Generation Exploration Conference being held here at NASA Ames. The participants are helping to clarify the science goals associated exploration of the moon, and also Mars and Asteroids. Division particpants include Max Bernstein Ross Beyer, Rosalba Bonaccorsi, Adrian Brown, Anthony Colaprete, Dale Cruikshank, James (Brad) Dalton, Kimberly Ennico, Jennifer Heldmann, Jeffery Hollingsworth, Pascal Lee, Yvonne Pendleton, Scott Sandford, Jason Smith, and Elisa Quintana, who is serving as one of the leads of the asteroid working group. Chris McKay is presenting a talk to the Mars working group on Thursday the 17^th entitled 'Mars settlement and society.'

Brad Dalton gave a presentation to Southwest Research Institute detailing his latest research into the surface composition of Europa on Tuesday August 8. He then met with SWRI scientists to discuss new telescopic observations of Europa and plans for the upcoming New Horizons Jupiter Encounter. He also toured the new instrument development facilities at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) of the University of Colorado on August 10th, and gave a reprise of his Europa presentation as a special seminar.

This article attracted considerable (and international) press coverage including 'Searching For Aliens' from Space Daily, 'NASA Reports That Methane Drizzles on Saturn's Moon, Titan' from Space Ref, and an interview with Dr. McKay about searching for aliens appeared in Astrobiology News online on July 27^th.

Ames meeting participants included Mike Sims, and Space Science Division scientists Jeff Moore, Nathalie Cabrol and David Desmarais. Sims and Desmarais organized the meeting and logistics. At one of the sessions, Desmarais presented a summary of Spirit's progress during the past two months, as well as a straw plan for her science operations during the upcoming late summer and early fall period.

About 20 MER folks attended the Thursday afternoon Ames tour, which included Code SSX (and NAI) biogeochemistry labs and greenhouse in N239, the Mars wind tunnel in N242, and the Astrochemistry lab in N245.

Jennifer Heldmann gave a talk to a group of NASA Explorer School teachers on July 19 here at NASA Ames. Title of the talk was 'Mars Analog Research and Educational Opportunities'

Three Space Science Division researchers spoke at the origins of life GRC at Bates College in Lewiston, ME. On Tuesday July 25th Andrew Pohorille discussed 'The origin and early evolution of membrane proteins.' On Thursday July 27th Jennifer Heldmann delivered a talk about 'Searching in the Deep (well, kind of deep) Subsurface for Life on Mars' and Brad Bebout on 'Factors driving microbial diversification in microbial mat communities.' For more information see http://www.grc.uri.edu/programs/2006/origin.htm

A. G. G. M. Tielens is a co-author on a research article that appeared recently in Science (14 July 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5784, pp. 196-200) entitled 'Massive-Star Supernovae as Major Dust Factories' This article is available online via science express at http://tinyurl.com/zgajm

David Hollenbach presented an invited talk entitled 'The Dispersal of Protoplanetary Disks and its Effect on Planet Formation' at the meeting 'The Planet-Disc Connection' which will be held July 17-21 at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. D. Hollenbach also served on the Science Organizing Committee for the Conference.

Ames exobiologist Linda Jahnke, who has been studying the biosynthesis of triterpenoids for some years, and Roger Summons at MIT authored an article that has just appeared in the Philosophical Tranactions of the Royal Society The work details the connection between modern-day biosynthesis of sterioids and hopanoids, and presence of molecular oxygen in the environment. Issues related to triterpenoid biosynthesis, oxygen requirements and source organisms are now recognized as essential to interpretation of their occurrences in Earth's oldest sedimentary record, some 2700 million years old. The citation is Summons, et al., 2006 'Steroids, triterpenoids and molecular oxygen' Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 361:951-968.

On Monday July 24^th Scott Sandford and Dale Cruikshank presented a special seminar for students and others curious about meteorites, including photos of meteorite collection in Antarctica.

SETI coop scientist Brad Dalton presented a talk on 'The Surface Composition of Europa' on Tuesday July 23^rd to the scientists of the Space Science Division.

Post doctoral fellow Jonathan Fortney, won the prestigious NASA "Carl Sagan Fellowship for Early Career Researchers" named for famed science explicator and personality Carl Sagan, depicted at left. Dr. Fortney will be studying how helium rain effects the cooling and evolution of Jupiter and Saturn. Only 10 people were selected for this extreme honor. He will receive 20K of additional grant money which he can use in his current position at Ames OR he will receive 100K if he is hired as a permanent researcher or faculty member elsewhere. Jonathan has already won the coveted Spitzer Fellowship this year (fewer than 5 selected each year) and his work with Space Science Division researcher, Mark Marley, has received international recognition.

On Thursday, July 20, at 2:00 p.m., Dr. Scott Sandford of the Astrophysics Branch (SSA) presented the Director's Colloquium in the Main Auditorium entitled "STARDUST: Returning Samples from Comet Wild-2". Dr. Sandford has received international acclaim for his work on antactric meteorites and is helping to pioneer testing on sample return materials from Genesis and Stardust.

Michael Way of the Astrophysics Branch (SSA) presented a seminar to Code T on Wednesday, July 19, on Novel Methods for Predicting Photometric Redshifts from Broad Band Photometry using Virtual Sensor technology. Seminars such as these encourage the cross disciplinary interaction between Codes at Ames and foster connections for future collaborations. Photometric redshifts are used as a rough estimate of the spectroscopic redshift of a galaxy whose spectrum has not been physically measured, but whose colors have in multiple bandpasses. In recent years these photometric redshifts have come into increasing use as larger and larger volumes of the universe are surveyed via broad band photometry at ground based telescopes. Dr. Way will discuss two new methods from machine learning used to tackle the problem of photometric redshift estimation. A brief introduction to photometric redshifts, their applications, and the SDSS will be presented, along with the results from a recent ApJ (in press) publication: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0601145

Mark Marley (SST) presented an invited talk at the University College London Astronomy Colloquium on Astrobiology July 10-13th.

On thursday July 13 Max Bernsteindelivered a public lecture at the University of Hong Kong to a large varied audience. The talk broadly covered astrobiology, the origin of life, and the search for life in the Solar System. That day Dr. Bernstein visited with Sun Kwok to discuss infrared spectra of planetary nebulae, and visited the laboratory of Prof. Steve Pointing, where he is depicted, in the center of the adjacent photo, holding a flask containing pink halophiles - microbes that live in salt. On the left is Prof Kwok, and on the right Prof. Pointing.

Ames Scientists attended the COSPAR meeting in China in mid July, including Civil servants Max Bernstein and Orlando Santos and Prof. Monika Kress of SJSU who are organizer, session chair, and editor, respectively, for session F3.2 on 'Interstellar/Protostellar Organic Chemistry'. Dr. Bernstein also presented a talk at symposium E1.6 about the ABE and ASPIRE infrared telescope mission concepts. This talk was developed by Kim Ennico and Scott Sandford who were unable to attend this conference. ASPIRE was one of nine potential missions selected by NASA for study to investigate new ideas for future mission concepts within its Astronomical Search for Origins Program.

The LCROSS System Requirements Review was held July 11. In this successful review the Lunar Precursor and Robotic Program (LPRP) Office, HQ and ARC assessed the project's understanding of their Level 1 and Level 2 requirements, which drive mission design.

Jennifer Heldmann (SST) gave a talk on July 11 entitled "NASA's Lunar Robotic Exploration and Considerations for Site Selection". The audience was composed primarily of science teachers gathered for the Robotics Alliance Project workshop.

On June 28th Lee Bebout took many of the Ames summer interns on a tour of the greenhouse atop building N239 and explained the developing environments for biota on the early Earth.

On June 27th Jennifer Heldmann gave the lunchtime seminar at the SETI Institute entitled 'Slamming Rockets into the Moon An overview of the LCROSS mission'

There was a live broadcast telecon at 6 AM on Wednesday June 27^th in the Educational Resource Center from the Atacama desert where Chris McKay is taking part in the Spaceward Bound program.

Yvonne Pendleton, Dale Cruikshank, Jack Lissauer and David Morrison were among the Ames participants at the by invitation only Near-Earth Object Detection, Characterization, and Threat Mitigation meeting being held this week in Vail, Colorado. Jack Lissauer and Dale Cruikshank presented a talks, Dale's was on 'determining the properties of near earth objects.' Although not attending Scott Sandford contributed two white papers, one on his mission proposal to precisely determine the extent of the Yarkovsky effect, which can cause asteroids to vary from their expected orbit, and another on asteroid sampling mission approaches.

Three space science division scientists took part in the NASA Explorer School event on Astrobiology here at NASA Ames. Jennifer Heldmann gave a talk on 6/28 entitled'Mars Analogs: NASA Research and Education Activities' and on 6/29 Dale Cruikshank gave a talk about cosmic chemistry and Lou Allamandola gave tours of the Astrochemistry lab.

Scott Sandford took part in three EPO activities this week. He gave a talk to the Mount Diablo Astronomical Society in Concord, CA, on Tuesday evening, he will be giving a series of talks at the Ponderosa Middle school in Sunnyvale on Thursday morning, and he spoke as part of the NASA explorers school astrobiology workshop here at Moffett Field on Thursday evening.

There were two talks in the space science division on the afternoon of wed June 28^th. The first by Anthony Colaprete was a briefing on the wavelength and resolution details of the instruments that will be aboard the LCROSS spacecraft so as to encourage collaborations, spur laboratory measurements and calculations in support of the mission. The second by Jim Benson, Founder, Chairman and CTO of SpaceDev Inc. entitled 'revolutionizing space for all humanit' was about the potential of small low-cost space missions.

Dr. Bernard Foing, chief Scientist of ESA's Research and Scientific Support Department (RSSD) and Executive Director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) will be visiting the Space Science division June 22-23. Dr. Foing, who is SMART-1(mission to the moon) Project Scientist, will be discussing ground based observations of the impact of the Smart 1 spacecraft on the Lunar surface with Dr. Diane Wooden (who did observations of Deep Impact). He will also meet with Dr. Tony Colaprete, PI of the LCROSS mission, and give a talk to the Space Science Division.

Max Bernstein gave a talk on June 20^th about planetary evolution and habitability for the SETI Institute's Astrobiology Summer Science Experience for Teachers (ASSET), a science and curriculum institute for high school science teachers. The summer course is taking place at SFSU.

Brad Bebout will be serving as a guest instructor for the summer field class LRES 570: Thermal Biology in Yellowstone Park, June 19-23. The Thermal Biology Institute has taught these summer classes for over 75 teachers as part of a masters in science education.

Chris McKay will be leading a group of seven NASA Explorer School teachers to "the driest place on Earth" - the Atacama desert in Chile from 19 to 31 June as part of the Spaceward Bound program where they experience authentic field research with world-renowned planetary scientists living and working in this remote Moon/Mars analog research site. Stay tuned for future live broadcast telecons and other announcements. This is part of a larger effort that will come together in the Atacama in volving not only teachers but also researchers interested in life in the driest desert on Earth as an analog for life on Mars and technologists demonstrating communications and robot rover technology in the rough desert environment that are prototypes for Moon and Mars missions.

Drs. Xander Tielens, Louis Allamandola and Tim Lee will be attending and speaking at Nobel Symposium 133 on Cosmic Chemistry and Molecular Astrophysics in Stockholm Sweden June 9-16.  The program can be found online (and abstracts downloaded as PDFs) at http://www.nobel133.physto.se/Programme/Programme.htm Dr. Alexander Tielens gave a talk on Sunday entitled 'Grain surface chemistry and the composition of interstellar ice.' Dr. Allamandola gave a talk on Tuesday entitled 'Decoding IR spectra of cosmic ices and organics in the laboratory' and will also chair Session XIII: A new frontier in space research-exobiochemistry on Thursday.

There was a Star and Planet Formation all day workshop on Monday, June 12 that involved mostly Ames and UC Santa Cruz astrophysicists. Adriane Steinacker organized the meeting, assisted by Greg Laughlin (former Ames post-docs) and SS division scientist David Hollenbach. Division scientiststs Jeff Cuzzi and Diane Wooden gave invited reviews. Spitzer post-doctoral fellow Johnathan Fortney also gave a talk. Division scientists Kevin Zahnle and Uma Gorti also attended.

David Desmarais attended a MER- Mars express OMEGA workshop and flight planning session June 12-14.

It was announced in the latest newsletter from the Division of Planetary Science (DPS) that our own Dale Cruikshank will be awarded the highly prestigious Gerard P. Kuiper Prize in recognition of his pioneering work in the application of infrared spectroscopy to solar system bodies, his development of laboratory techniques that have become tools for interpreting observations, and his leadership in the design of instruments for remote sensing observations from deep space planetary exploration probes.

Diane Wooden has been awarded time on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) to monitor the impact of the ESA 'Smart 1' mission on the moon.  This will be a good test for the ground based observations that will monitor the impact of the LCROSS mission in a permanently shadowed crater on the south pole of the moon.  The smart 1 space craft will end up hitting the moon nearer to the equator (more like where the Apollo missions went) but that makes it a great test case. It will be a smaller impact but into regolith that we have already sampled so we have 'ground' truth.

Our scientists will be taking part in the 208th American Astronomical Society Meeting 4-8 June 2006 Calgary, Alberta, Canada. For example, Scott Sandford and Hong Kong scientist Sun Kwok are organizing session 24 entitled 'Organic Compounds: from Stars to the Solar System' see http://www.aas.org/meetings/aas208/. Division scientists presenting at this meeting include Dale Cruikshank and Yvonne Pendleton.

The first and second week of June Jack Lissauer will be giving talks at the meeting 'Planetary Science: Challenges and Discoveries' in Blois, at the Paris Observatory, and will then engage in science meetings with Prof. Murray of Queen Mary College in London.

Tony Colaprete was interviewed by ABC 7 regarding the LCROSS mission and how to choose an appropriate crater on the moon. To read the transcript of this interview see http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=4210010

A story about the mission also appeared in the May 2006 edition of the NASA Ames 'Astrogram' on page 5. Dr. Colaprete himself is depicted on page 3 of that same astrogram with the science student winners of the 2006 Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Engineering Technology Championship on their visit to NASA Ames on May 4^th. To download a PDF of that astrogram follow this link: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/pdf/149168main_06_05astrogram.pdf

A number of Division scientists will be taking part in the Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Workshop in Pasadena May 31st - June 2nd, 2006 including Jeff Moore, Ross Beyer, Adrian Brown, Nathalie Cabrol and Edmund Grin.  Oral presentations include 'Mars Science Laboratory landing Site: Linking the past and the present with Aram Basin' by N. A. Cabrol and E. A. Grin [download PDF here] and 'Terby Crater as a potential landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory S.A. Wilson, A.D. Howard and Division scientist J.M. Moore [download PDF here]. For more information please see the general URL for landing sites where there is currently information linked at the top: http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ or the URL for the program at: http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/msl/workshops/1st_workshop/program.html

Farid Salama gave an invited presentation entitled 'Spectroscopy of PAH ions: From Laboratory Studies to Astronomical Observations' at the 54th Annual Conference of the ASMS (American Society for Mass Spectrometry) in Seattle, Washington on Thursday June 1^st. See http://www.asms.org/ for more information.

Jennifer Heldmann will be serving as a judge on Saturday, June 3 at the East Palo Alto High School science fair.

Jamie Elsila took part in astronomy day at the California Academy of Sciences on May on May 6^th by presenting an introduction to astrochemistry to over a dozen visitors to the museum.

An image of microbial mats taken by division scientist Lee Bebout from their Baja Mexico Field site is the cover shot for the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology in association with the article 'Unexpected Diversity and Complexity of the Guerrero Negro Hypersaline Microbial Mat' co-authored by division scientist Brad M. Bebout. For more information see http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/short/72/5/3685

The Mars Analog Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE) Team won a NASA Group Achievement Award which was presented on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 24, 2006. In order to seek life in the Martian subsurface, robotic drilling, extraterrestrial sample handling and life-detection technologies must be developed, and the MARTE team (Marte is the Spanish word for Mars) is doing just that. Dr. Stoker has directed the development of a prototype drilling system and tested it in the field, simulating a Mars mission near the Rio Tinto, a river in southwestern Spain. For more information see http://marte.arc.nasa.gov/ and http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/exploringtheuniverse/marsdrill.html

The Pavilion lake research project (PLRP) happened right here at NASA Ames Research Center May 18-21^st. The Analogue Research Workshop will provide a broader research context to Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP) activities being carried out by scientists like Drs. Lim and McKay, of the Space Science Division. The PLRP is a multi-disciplinary research program better understand the microbialites in Pavilion Lake, British Columbia, home of Mars analogue terrestrial lacustrine carbonates. For more information on the project see http://supercritical.civil.ubc.ca/~pavilion/

There will be presentations on global analog projects, delivered by internationally renowned researchers, such as Dr. Christopher McKay, Nathalie Cabrol, and a dozen specific science data presentations on work to date from the Pavilion Lake Research Project. The workshop will also include a 2-day field excursion to Mono and Pyramid Lakes, Nevada.

Louis Allamandola will be delivering the Seminar on Physics and Chemistry of Planetary Ices at JPL on Thursday May 18^th.  His talk is entitled 'From Astrochemistry to Astrobiology and Back Again.'  He will discuss work from the astrochemistry lab on the spectroscopy of aromatic compounds and using lab spectra to fit the infrared emission features.  For more information see http://www.astrochem.org/

Scott Sanford reports from the Stardust science team meeting last week where he and Diane Wooden presented. There was a general consensus that many of comet particles are built like loose dirt-clods composed both of "large strong rocks" as well as very fine powdery materials. The fine and coarse materials are only loosely held together and they separated during collection in low-density aerogel to form tracks shaped, as the PI Don Brownlee described them, 'like ginseng, turnips or carrots' (see figures at left).  For more information on this science team meeting see http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/status/060512.html

Louis Allamandola and Andy Mattioda were both quoted in an article in the May 1^st issue chemical trade journal 'Chemical and Engineering News.'  The article entitled 'Big Molecules In Space' discussed recent advances in astrochemistry presented at a recent American Chemical Society meeting and reviewed their recent work on aromatic compounds.  For more information see: 

http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/84/i18/html/8418sci2.html?print

Scott Sanford gave two public talks about the Stardust and Hayabusa Missions this past weekend.

Both entitled "The Stardust Cometary and Hayabusa Asteroid Sample Return Missions," the first was given at San Mateo College Astronomy Day Lecture, San Mateo College Planetarium, San Mateo, CA, May 6, and the second at St. Andrews United Methodist Church in Palo Alto, CA, on May 7.

Chris McKay attended the Exploration Strategy Workshop in Washington D.C., the purpose of which was to develop a set of Lunar Exploration Objectives.  To accomplish this NASA assembled a group of about 160 "experts" including NASA people, industry, academia and 45 representatives for 13 countries including India, Russia and the Ukraine.

Farid Salama SOC of the 2006 Laboratory Astrophysics Workshop held in February at UNLV and member of the Executive Committee announced the release of a White Paper that will be provided to NASA Headquarters on topics and issues related to the current status and future of NASA's Laboratory Astrophysics Research program.  Other Ames participants included: Xander Tielens (SST), Tom Greene (SSA), Tim Lee (SSA), and former NPP Xiaofeng Tan (SSA). For more information see http://www.physics.unlv.edu/labastro/mission.html

Jack Lissauer, Brad Dalton and Jeff Moore of SST met with NASA HQ officials at the Outer Planet Advisory Group (OPAG) meeting in Pasadena on May 4 & 5. A document detailing strategy for exploring the outer planets and their satellites, with recommendations, is being developed from the results of that meeting. "I think this is very encouraging," says Brad, "Headquarters is interested in maintaining a robust exploration program, that, while focused on the Moon and Mars, does not forget that there are other planets out there."

Dr. Dale Cruikshank spoke as part of the Mt. Tam Astronomy series, to more than 250 people about 'Small Worlds in the Distant Solar System' on April 29, 2006. For more information about these astronomy lectures see http://www.mttam.net/Default.aspx?tabid=843

On May 2-5 Drs. Scott Sandford and Diane Wooden presented at the 6th workshop on the Stardust Sample return Mission in Timber Cove, CA. On Wednesday afternoon Diane Wooden spoke on 'Comet mineralogy as inferred from infrared spectra of comets.' Scott summarized the results from the team analysing the organics in the Stardust samples on Wednesday morning was moderator for the Organics Òpop-upÓ talks and discusssion on Thursday morning, and spoke on Thursday evening about the Hayabusa Mission.

Dr. Yvonne Pendleton spoke on Monday the 24th at Williams College for a leadership class taught by Dr. Jay Pasachoff (noted planetary astronomer and textbook writer). Other speakers to this class have included Steven Dick, NASA Chief Historian and Steven Beckwith, former director, Space Telescope Science Institute.

Dr. Scott Sanford gave the NAI directors Seminar last Thursday via Polycom, WebEx, and Realplayer webcast to 14 NAI affiliated universities and research institutions throughout the country and an additional 12 viewers online. The talk entitled 'The Stardust Discovery Mission - Returning Unique Samples of Early Solar System Organics' will be made available as a pod and video cast later this week at the NAI Website.

On Wednesday April 19, Dr. Brad Dalton was a featured guest (along with two other scientists) on the radio program "Alaska Voices Live" syndicated by radio stations KBRW (Barrow, AK), KDLG (Dillingham, AK), KYUK (Bethel, AK) and KOTZ (Kotzebue, AK). Brad discussed his involvement with the Europa Focus Group, his research on Arctic sea ice microorganisms (collected from sea ice 40 miles north of the Alaskan coast at Barrow) as analogues for extraterrestrial life, and his work with the New Horizons mission to Pluto, which will be encountering the Jupiter system in a few months. Brad also fielded questions from elementary school students and teachers about extreme limits of life, sea ice thickness and implications for Europa, and climate change in the Arctic. He discussed ways that locals (including Alaskan Inupiat natives) could get involved in Astrobiology research and help to further NASA's goals of space exploration.

Dr. George Cooper presented to the Chemistry Faculty at Bennett College (a traditionally black college for women in North Carolina), an overview of his research collaboration with their students. The students will analyze chiral 6-carbon sugar acids. During this process Cooper repaired the GC-MS instrument and, with the chemistry faculty, prepared the instrument for the analysis of the samples.

As part of Santa Clara University's MARS 2006 spring Astrobiology Seminar Series, Dr. Chris McKay gave a talk last Wednesday (April 12th) about 'Life on Mars'. This Wednesday (April 19th) Dr. Nathalie Cabrol will speak about 'The Mars Exploration Rovers and Beyond: From Habitability to Life.'

Dr. Bob Haberle won a 2 year ~ 150K/yr Mars Fundamental Research grant on "The Early Mars Sulphur Cycle." Co-I's are Dr. Kevin Zahnle and Dr. Tony Colaprete. They plan to explore an atmospheric origin for the sulfate deposits seen by the MER rovers and the Mars Express orbiter.

Dr. Brad Dalton spoke on Saturday April 8, 2006 at the Chabot Observatory to the East Bay Astronomical Society on "The Surface Composition of Europa: Present State of Understanding." Brad summarized the results of the Galileo mission and ongoing laboratory efforts to duplicate the spacecraft observations, primarily in the visible and near-infrared spectrum. This included his own recent work at Ames on mixtures of hydrated sulfur compounds, including salts that may provide insights into the composition of Europa's interior ocean and its clemency toward life.

Nathalie Cabrol was a co-author on no fewer than five articles in a recent special issue of JGR-Planets devoted to the Mars exploration rover Spirit:

Cabrol, et al., (2006), Aqueous processes at Gusev crater inferred from physical properties of rocks and soils along the Spirit traverse, J. Geophys. Res., 111, E02S20, 10.1029/2005JE002490.

Arvidson, et al., (2006). Overview of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover Mission to Gusev Crater: Landing site to Backstay Rock in the Columbia Hills. J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 111, No. E2, E02S01 10.1029/2005JE002499

Golombek, et al., (2006). Geology of the Gusev cratered plains from the Spirit rover transverse J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 111, No. E2, E02S07, 10.1029/2005JE002503.

Greeley, et al., (2006). Gusev crater: Wind-related features and processes observed by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. J. Geophys. Res. 111, E02S09, doi:10.1029/2005JE002491.

Herkenhoff, et al., (2006). Overview of the Microscopic Imager Investigation during Spirit's first 450 sols in Gusev crater. J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 111, No. E2, E02S04, 10.1029/2005JE002574

Post-doctoral fellows Rachel Mastrapa and Ross Beyer were asked to sit on a panel about work-life balance by the Stanford Chemistry Women's Committee on Graduate Life on the evening of April 6th 2006. The Stanford Daily wrote an article about the event and Drs. Ross and Mastrapa were included in a photo on the front page of the Stanford Daily.

The research of Daniel R. Kojiro on Penning ionization electron spectroscopy (PIES) was written up in Chemical and Engineering News, a weekly trade journal with a circulation of over 100,000. It appeared as a highlight from the recent American Chemical Society meeting. Kojiro is interested in adapting PIES for planetary missions because it could provide a small instrument that gives definitive analysis of complex mixtures. This work was funded through a Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from NASA and done in conjunction with colleagues at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Emmett Quigley of the division shop recently played an important role in updating the 3% Space Shuttle Model for return to flight so it represents the current shuttle configuration, for use in the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel.The parts Mr Quigley was tasked to fabricate were "Ice Ramps" in two different configurations. Both were close tolerance multi axis milling jobs that were very demanding in both hardware and software. Tools ranging from .125 all the way down to .020 full radius (ball) end mills were used at speeds up to 20,000 RPM. Chip load per tooth generally ran from .002 per tooth to .0002 per tooth and step over per pass ranged from .005 all the way down to .0005. Some of our cutter paths were over 30000 lines of code and some of the cuts took over 6 hours. In addition to the Ice Ramps work on other small hardware necessary for completion of the model on time and budget was performed both here in the SS shop as well as in 220 working side by side with Code FMX personnel.

At the 231st ACS National Meeting in Atlanta, next week (March 26-30, 2006) there is a special symposium on 'Molecules in Space' and our division is going to be a powerful force there, with three invited and three contributed talks: 'Introduction to chemistry on granular surfaces' by Alexander G. Tielens (Invited) 'Interstellar PAHs: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow' by Louis J. Allamandola (Invited) 'Laboratory spectroscopy of PAHs and dust particles: From the laboratory to astronomical observations' by Farid Salama (Invited) 'Spectroscopy of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the interstellar environment' by Andrew L. Mattioda (contributed) 'Computational spectroscopy of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons' by Xiaofeng Tan & Farid Salama (contributed), and Observations of solid state interstellar molecules by Jean Chiar. See http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/231nm/techprogram/S20227.HTM for more details. In addition Daniel R. Kojiro has two talks and two posters at the ACS meeting in the 'Analytical Approaches' Sessions including ' Instrumentation for in situ sampling and analysis of compounds of interest to Astrobiology in the lower atmosphere and surface of Titan.'

Jonathan Fortney has won a Spitzer Fellowship to work on 'Giant Planets as a Class of Astronomical Objects' at the Space Science Division at ARC. In an effort to understand new transit and secondary eclipse data Dr. Fortney will compute new radiative equilibrium atmosphere models of hot Jupiters that have been detected with Spitzer and begin work on coupling dynamical atmosphere models to these radiative models. For more info see: http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/geninfo/fellows/fellowslist.html

Additional highlights from the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (which was mentioned in last week's highlights): NRC post-doc Ross Beyer chaired the Tuesday afternoon session: "Mars: Analog Studies and Aeolian Deposition/Erosion" gave a talk entitled: "Erosion, Burial, and Exhumation at Ganges Mensa, Mars." http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2006LPI....37.1914B and presented a poster: "Meter-scale Slopes from Point Photoclinometry for the Potential Phoenix Landing Sites." http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2006LPI....37.1923B

Lunar and Planetary Science Conference: At least 19 Space Science and Astrobiology Division scientists are authors or co-authors this week (March 13�17, 2006) on at least 50 presentations at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas. The subjects of these presentations include missions such as Cassini, Hayabusa, Stardust, Mars Exploration Rovers and related and unrelated science on subjects all over the Solar System. For more information see http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/

TV Interviews following the Stardust Press Conference: Drs. Diane Wooden and Max Bernstein spoke with local television reporters following the Stardust Mission press conference that was held on Monday March 13th from JSC in Texas. Stardust mission Co-I Dr. Sandford took part remotely from the LPSC conference (see above) and was quoted in various newspapers. See for example http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/5722.html http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1591718.htm http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=281658&sid=ENV&ssid=27 Here at NASA Ames Diane Wooden was interviewed by ABC7, KRON4 and Fox2 after the press conference and appeared on the KNTV-TV, Channel 11 NBC Morning show at 10 am on Tuesday. Max Bernstein was interviewed in a laboratory by KRON4.

Scott Sandford was keynote speaker for the San Francisco Middle School Science Fair at the Randall Museum on Saturday, February 25. The audience of ~160 people, was composed of middle school science fair winners, their families and teachers, and a few local dignitaries (school board members and the like) and museum staff and volunteers. Also, Scott will give the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture at Foothill College on Wednesday March first, and roughly 600 people usually attend. http://www.foothill.fhda.edu/ast/news.htm - Anchor5

Division participation in Jason City: Brad Bebout Lee Bebout, Tracy Cote, Stefan J. Green and Mary Hogan are all taking part in the 'Jason City' educational program this week that will involve ~7000 kids over the course of the week. Among other things they will go to hanger (N211) from about 9:30 till 2:20 all this week and see a microbial mats exhibit.

California Academy of Sciences museum visits: Jamie Elsila spoke with approximately 80 visitors to the Cal Academy in San Francisco on January 21 and 28. Dr. Elsila spoke at four sessions and gave visitors an introduction to astrochemistry, focusing on work being done at the Astrochemistry Lab at Ames. She also showed visitors up-to-date information and pictures from the Stardust mission. On Wed Feb 1st she hosted a group of 30 docents from Cal Academy that are coming to Ames. They will tour the astrochemistry lab and are visiting the Mars Center and the greenhouses in N239

David Summers had a paper come out in OLEB that extends the understanding of reduced nitrogen in the prebiotic environment by reduction of nitrite/nitrate with other types of ferrous iron under acidic conditions. (Summers, D. P., 2005, "Ammonia Formation by the Reduction of Nitrite/Nitrate by FeS: Ammonia Formation under Acidic Conditions", OLEB, 35, 299-312). He also gave a talk at the last DPS meeting and is working on another paper that experimentally models the fixation of nitrogen on terrestrial planets, confirming theoretic pathways and finding additional ones, depending on the availability of water.

The exobiology research of Doug Hudgins (SSA on detail at HQ) is featured in the Science News article that appeared online last week. For more information see: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060121/bob10.asp

Jeff Scargle gave two invited talks at a 10-day astrostatistics workshop at the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute, in Durham N.C. The talks were on Segmentation of Astronomical Data I. Time Series and Other One-Dimensional Data and II. Images and Other Higher-Dimensional Data. http://www.samsi.info/workshops/2005astro-workshop200601.shtml

Julie Nottage and Robert Walker have made the Astrochemistry lab in room 294 of 245 (SSA) safer at no extra cost to the division by setting up a surplus Portable Eye Wash unit. There is also a shower hose you can use instead of the eye wash if needed. The power cord is for keeping the water at a comfortable temperature.

Dr. Sandford continues to get press coverage related to Stardust including articles in this week's science times and an interview on KGO-TV ABC CH 7.

Space Science and
Astrobiology Division Highlights January 25, 2006

Patent for Dr. Castellano: The Ames patent attorney filed a patent the name of Tim Castellano as sole inventor for a "Simplified Night Sky Display System," a low cost portable planetarium system similar to the Space Sciences Theatre located in the Ames Visitor's CenterÉand his robotic telescope comes online:

The San Diego Astronomy Association reports the first light pictures taken by the NASA SDAA 'Roboscope' the robotic telescope collaborative observatory (nee TOFUA) located near the Mexican border. Dr. Castellano drove it down himself after he and David Scimeca made it operational up here at NASA Ames this past spring. For more information see http://aisig.sdaa.org/astroblogDetail.asp?imgID=886&UserID=2

Mark Marley was interviewed by Science News and Science magazine regarding recent brown dwarf discoveries and gave the weekly seminar last week at UC Santa Cruz Earth Science department.

New Horizons Launch: The New Horizons mission is on its way to Pluto at high speed. Drs. Cruikshank and Moore are Co-Is on the mission.

Dr. Lou Allamandola gave an astrobiology class lecture at Stanford University. The class is organized by Dr. Lynn Rothschild.

Mission to Mars: Lassen National Park
Space Science Division scientist Jen Heldmann and other NASA Ames engineers, scientists, and educators traveled to Lassen National Park to perform science and participate in an EPO activity that has involved over 1800 students to date.

The science was to deploy instruments to characterize the physical properties of terrestrial snowpacks over the course of the winter. This data will be correlated with known occurrences of snow algae activity and coupled with numerical models of snowpack behavior to thereby improve our understanding regarding the habitability of snowpack deposits on Earth and Mars.

The EPO work involved live interactive webcast broadcast for the Quest Web Challenge. The scientists discussed their respective research and the utility of such Mars-analog environments (with special emphasis on habitation infrastructure, transportation, field tools & equipment, and field assistants), and then addressed questions submitted in real-time from participating students. The Challenge allows middle school students to follow the activities of NASA researchers and to then design their own missions to Mars to enable similar research activities on the Red Planet. More information is available at quest.nasa.gov.

Tim Lee Elected AAAS Fellow

Dr. Timothy J. Lee, Branch Chief of SSA was elected by the council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as a fellow of the AAAS. Each year since 1874 the AAAS has elected fellows whose "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished." Dr. Lee was so honored for his "influential work in applying state-of-the-art ab initio theory to important problems in spectroscopy and atmospheric chemistry."

Jamie Elsila Featured in NRC RAP Newsletter A full page article about National Research Council (NRC) post-doc Jamie Elsila appeared in the latest issue of the NRC Research Associate programs newsletter on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the NRC. It traces Dr. Elsila from her undergraduate published research, through the peace core in east Africa, and her graduate studies at Stanford, to NASA Ames.

Space Science and
Astrobiology Division Highlights October 19, 2005

Caffeine in Space?
Division scientists Doug Hudgins and Louis Allamandola, in conjunction with Ames scientist Charles Bauschlicher, published an article in the Oct. 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal suggesting that aromatics bearing nitrogen (PANHs) - a class of compounds central to our biochemistry - are prevalent throughout the universe. This class of compounds includes not only our nucleo-bases but also other molecules including caffeine, and the active ingredient in chocolate. News pieces about this science appeared online at Astrobiology Magazine, MSNBC, Science Daily, Yahoo News and many other online science web sites. Els Peeters was interviewed by a Dutch radio program in connection with this. The NASA Ames news release is at http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2005/05_53AR.html and for more information see http://www.astrochem.org/PANHS.html.

Stardust Dress Rehearsal
As the official Science Team Representative of the Stardust Sample Return Capsule (SRC) Recovery Team, Scott Sandford has been participating in a series of dress rehearsals for the recovery and disassembly of the Stardust SRC. From October 3-7, he participated in rehearsals of the transportation of the SRC from the recovery site in Utah to JSC, and rehearsals of the procedures that will be used in the Stardust clean room at JSC for the disassembly of the SRC and removal of the aerogel tiles that contain the cometary samples. Pictured in the image are many of the personnel that will be involved in these tasks (Sandford is 3rd from the left).

Athena on Mars
Division scientist Jeffrey Moore has been selected by NASA to join the Athena Science Team as a Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Participating Scientist who will participate in the Athena Science Investigation. The goals of the MERP Science Program are to enhance the science data return and to participate in daily mission operations of the Rovers. Jeff's role is to enhance data interpretation of the physical and geologic properties of surface materials along the MER traverses using discrete element methods (DEM) analysis that can account for geometric influences and heterogeneous surfaces. For more information regarding the Athena MER Science Investigation see http://athena.cornell.edu.

Space Science and
Astrobiology Division Highlights October 05, 2005

H2O on Enceladus, amorphous or crystalline? Space Science and Astrobiology Division Scientists Dale Cruikshank and (NRC post-doc) Rachel Mastrapa are co-authors on a manuscript being submitted to Science this week that presents and interprets new data from the Cassini Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). The new VIMS data are spectra of Saturn's icy satellite Enceladus showing lots of water ice, and Dr. Mastrapa is using spectra measured in the Astro-chemistry lab to determine the ice phase. This in turn informs us about the history of this fascinating object.

The Division Chief never sleeps (when she is observing the stars).

The late night owls in the Space Science and Astrobiology Division have noticed that the Chief Yvonne Pendleton has been at work all night the last few days, that is because she has been observing interstellar clouds using the NASA infrared telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii remotely from her office. She, Tom Greene, and Kim Ennico (who is on the mountain) are using infrared spectroscopy to explore the earliest stages of prebiotic chemistry in regions where stars and planetary systems form. These observations are in support of Pendleton's Spitzer space telescope time.

EPO: Division participation in Sally Ride Day etc.

A) Leslie Prufert-Bebout, Jennifer Heldmann, and Chris McKay took part in the Sally Ride Science Festival held at Ames on Sunday, Oct. 2, providing excellent encouragement to and/or role models of women in science and engineering in general and at NASA in particular. The festival was a resounding success with over 1150 girls attending with their parents.

B) Dana Backman, David Koch, Tim Lee, and Tom Roellig took part in the NASA Administrator's Fellowship program (NAFP), Curriculum Improvement Partnership Award (CIPA) and Hariett G. Jenkins Pre-doctoral Fellowship Program (JPFP) Symposium.

C) SOFIA and education outreach will be highlighted in the "News for Kids" section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution this week by way of an interview with Yvonne Pendleton who is returning to Atlanta for her highschool reunion.

Making sure astronomers don't run out of time.

Tom Greene chaired the time allocation committee (TAC) distributing observing time for the Keck Observatory (which comprised of two 10-meter Telescopes on Hawaii). The allocation of time for such world class telescopes is a very prestigious and important task.

The MARTE project (led by Carol Stoker of Branch SST) is entering its fourth and final week of field operations in Spain with the robotic drill and have just passed 5 meters of drilling depth with accompanying sample collection and analysis with the robotic system. They have successfully achieved all of the project goals. Another major first from the experiment is detection of biological signatures of life with a life detection instrument in samples obtained from the subsurface by the robotic drill. For more information see http://www.marteproject.com

Scott Sandford, (SSA) Co-I on the Hayabusa Mission Team, reports from the road that the mission now has good images of Asteroid Itokawa taken from 20 Km that reveal a strange (perhaps composite) overall shape, and bumps rather than craters. The Hayabusa Mission will return samples from the surface of this asteroid. For more information see http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.html

Dale Cruikshank (SSA) Co-I on the Cassini Mission Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) Team, reports that the spacecraft passed within 500 Km of the surface of Saturn's satellite Hyperion to map its surface and measure its composition. The VIMS data demonstrate that this satellite is covered in ice dominated by H2O but also contains CO2. They need to get close to get high enough spatial resolution to measure spectra of dark matter that sits at the bottom of the craters. For more on VIMS see http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu/

Kudos to Edna DeVore EPO Co-I for the Kepler Mission (but better known as Deputy CEO and Director of EPO at SETI Institute) who won the "Women in Aerospace Award" for aerospace awareness yesterday in Washington DC. Edna began her work in aerospace her at NASA Ames in 1992 as Project Teacher for Flight Opportunities for Science Teacher EnRichment (FOSTER) with the KAO, was the EPO lead for the SOFIA proposal/program and is still actively involved in Kepler. She also works with many other SS&A division scientists on other EPO efforts. For more information please see http://www.seti.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=997263

Diane Wooden was co-author on three articles in last weeks issue of the journal Science. These articles were all about science associated with the Deep Impact Mission, and her contribution was to take part in ground-based observations with Harker and Woodward at GEMINI and Sugita from SUBARU. The highlights of these observations were the detection of surprisingly large amounts of crystalline olivine (see image*), and acetonitrile (CH3-CN). She was quoted in a recent article in the (Christian Science Monitor), USA Today, and audio clips of Dr. Wooden talking about the Deep Impact Mission can be found on line at: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/multimedia/audio/2005/wooden.html
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As a part of work by Washington University professorProf. Fegley on thermochemical equilibrium calculations to model the chemistry of silicate vapor and steam-rich atmospheres during the accretion process, Space Science Division scientist Steve Charnley, suggested that some of the light emitted by SiO gas when earth-like planets undergo accretion could form a maser - Microwave Amplification by Stimulation Emission of Radiation. Whereas a laser is comprised of photons in the ultraviolet or visible light spectrum, masers are energy packets in the microwave image. For more information see: http://www.physorg.com/news6286.html
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Space Science Division Scientist Jeffrey M. Moore made public a novel explanation for the dearth of carbonates on Mars, a perplexing feature of the red planet. On Earth, most of the early CO2 atmosphere dissolved into the oceans and formed carbonate rocks, such as limestone. Mars was once warm liquid water flowed across its surface and Mars also had a thick atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide (CO2), just like ancient Earth so why isn't Mars full of carbonates like the adult Earth is? Dr. Moore explained that they never had a chance to form on Mars in the first place because when Mars was young it was filled with active volcanoes spewing vast amounts of sulfuric acid, which rained onto the surface. On a world covered by sulfuric acid, conditions were far too harsh for carbonate rocks to survive. Put a drop of acid on limestone and the rock will sizzle and start to dissolve. For more information see The Missing Martian Carbonates (Sky & Telescope) By David Tytell Sky & Telescope, September 8, 2005.

2.Recent ISSOL Meeting in Beijing produces new Space Science Division fellow and Council member.

The International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life re-elected David DesMarais to the ISSOL Council, and elected Chris McKay an ISSOL Fellow. Chris is one of only four Fellows selected in a three-year period. (Other past and Present Ames ISSOL Fellows are David DesMarais, Sherwood Chang, and Don DeVincenzi). ISSOL has also elected Rose Grymes as Secretary, so Ames has been highly recognized as an important contributor to this organization.

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