NASA Ames, SS Divisio News and Events from 2007

Held several times a year, Ames-UCSC Star and Planet Formation workshops feature a mix of Ames scientists, UCSC scientists, UCSC graduate students, and typically one outside guest, talking on diverse related topics. At the second workshop in the Ames scientists Tom Greene (SSA), Uma Gorti (SJSU), Denis Richard (SJSU), and Kevin Zahnle (SST) spoke. A social event is planned for April 14, at which Ames and UCSC scientists and students can interact on a more informal basis.

Nathalie Cabrol (SST) has a brand new project funded: Formation and Evolution of Spherules and

Meridiani (a plain near the equator of Mars). Investigators NA Cabrol, G. Chong (Universidad Catolica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile), EA Grin (NASA Ames/SETI Carl Sagan Center), JL Piatek (University of Tennessee), and I. Utskins Peate (University of Iowa) will elucidate the origin of ÒblueberriesÓ(tiny regular spheres) on Mars by exploring the formation of terrestrial spherules in three different geological settings in the Atacama desert of Chile: (a) saline/evaporitic, (b) volcanic-hydrothermal, and (c) impactic.

The PI Cabrol has a long experience of work in extreme environments, including the Atacama desert (since 1997) and in the neighboring Andes (since 2002). She both develops exploration

strategies for rover exploration and explores analogs to ancient Martian lake environments in

high-altitude lakes in the Andes. The new will investigate the formation of spherules in various planetary environments in the Atacama as analogs to the Meridiani site explored by the rover Opportunity. An article featuring Nathalie CabrolÕs work in this general area recently appeared on the Space.Com web site: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070402_mm_mars_caves.html

Accepted for publication

Extrasolar Planet temperature map

Jonathan Fortney, a Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellow at ARC and a Principal Investigator at the SETI Institute, and collaborators have used the Spitzer Space Telescope to construct the first temperature map of an extrasolar planet Ð namely the 63 light-year distant "hot Jupiter" planet, HD 189733b, orbiting very close to its parent star.

Here is the abstract of a paper that will appear in early May in the Journal Nature:

Heather A. Knutson, David Charbonneau, Lori E. Allen, Jonathan J. Fortney, Eric Agol, Nicolas B. Cowan, Adam P. Showman, Curtis S. Cooper, and S. Thomas Megeath

Due to the close proximity (< 0.05 A.U.) to their parent stars, 'hot Jupiter' extrasolar planets are expected to be tidally locked, with permanent day and night sides. By observing systems where the planet and star periodically eclipse each other, several groups have been able to estimate the temperatures of the day sides of these planets. A key question is whether the atmosphere is able to transport the energy incident upon the day side to the night side, which will determine the temperature at different points on the planet's surface. We observed HD 189733, the closest of these eclipsing planetary systems, over half an orbital period and detected the increase in brightness as the day side of the planet rotated into view. We estimate a minimum brightness temperature of 973 ± 33 K and a maximum brightness temperature of 1212 ± 11 K at 8 microns, indicating that energy from the irradiated day side is efficiently redistributed throughout the atmosphere, in contrast to a recent claim. Our data indicate that the peak hemisphere-integrated brightness occurs 16 degrees before opposition, corresponding to a hot spot shifted east of the substellar point. The secondary eclipse (when the planet moves behind the star) occurs 120 ± 25 s later than predicted, which may indicate a slightly eccentric orbit.

Astrochemistry Activities

Farid Salama (SSA) recently visited the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to discuss possible collaborations and the use of the synchrotron radiation in the projects in the Ames Astrochemisty Labaoratory. A paper from this group and other collaborators from Jena, Germany and the Max Planck Institutes has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical

Physics:ÒThe S1(1A1) -- S0(1A1) transition of benzo[g,h,i]perylene in supersonic jets and rare

gas matrices,Óa follow up study to previous work in laboratory astrophysics at Ames on the

largest interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) measured in the laboratory so far.

Invited presentations

Star Formation Presentation

David Hollenbach (SST) has been invited to give a talk at an international conference on star formation ("From Stars to Planets") to be held at the University of Florida from April 10-14. The title of his talk is "Photoevaporation of Disks around Young Stars", and it concerns the effect on planet formation of the dispersal of protoplanetary disks. This work is closely related to observations being made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and future NASA missions such as SOFIA.

Keck Observatory Working Meeting

Tom Greene (SSA) attended a meeting on planning the science requirements for the Keck Observatory's next generation adaptive optics system at UC Santa Cruz, Mar 27 Ð 28, representing NASA's Keck science interests and providing information on JWST's capabilities.

Media events and public presentations

Unique Hexagonal Cloud Formation on Saturn

KGO television (ABC7) on March 29 ran a story about a Òmysterious 6-sided cloud over SaturnÓ detected by the Cassini spacecraft now in orbit around the planet. This remarkable story featured commentary by Drs. Jeff Hollingsworth, Jeff Moore, and Mark Marley (all associated with SST), and can be viewed at

Summary: Mar. 29- KGO - Just when you think you've seen everything in nature - a new surprise pops up. This time, it's the north pole of Saturn, where the Cassini spacecraft has sent back new pictures of a storm that is more than out of this world. Ever since the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn three years ago, it has sent back stirring, other worldly views, like the planet's rings eclipsing its moons. But now, the scientific community is buzzing about new infrared video of a polar storm on that planet. The hexagonal shapes of the clouds keep going around and around.

Dwarf Stars

Dr. Jack Lissauer (SST) recently published a paper on M dwarf planets and volatiles, which was discussed on Paul GilsterÕs blog Centauri Dreams (http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1136).

Snow Packs and Algae: Martian Analogs

Jennifer Heldmann (SST) was interviewed for a podcast, posted at the Northern California Natural History Museum website (http://www.ncnhm.org/). She was interviewed for the weekly radio show on Northstate Public Radio, KCHO, 91.7 and KFPR, 88.8 FM, titled "The Blue Dot Report" discussing her research at Lassen National Park (studying snowpacks and snow algae as an analog for Mars).

Water on the Moon?

Jennifer Heldmann (SST) gave a talk to the Mount Diablo Astronomical Society on March 27 in Concord, CA titled "The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission: Searching for Water on the Moon".

Careers in Math and Science

Jennifer Heldmann (SST) was the keynote speaker at Gunderson High School's California Scholarship Federation (CSF) awards ceremony in San Jose on March 31. At this annual conference the CSF board gives scholarships to outstanding students in high and middle school. My talk focused on encouraging students to pursue careers in math and science.

More than 17 scientists from the Space Science Division presented at the 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference this week in League City, Texas. Highlights include: Janice Bishop (SETI) who is on 14 abstracts, Jeff Moore 8, Virginia Gulick 8, Chris McKay 7, and Scott Sandford 6, Dale Cruikshank 6, and Jeff Cuzzi 6. A list of authors and titles appears below.

Mars Oxidant Instrument

An article in Sciencedaily.com features the Mars Oxidant Instrument (MOI) which will be part of the Urey instrument package for use on the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013 'In order to improve our chances of finding chemical evidence of life on Mars, and designing human habitats and other equipment that will function well on Mars' surface, we need to improve our understanding of oxidants in the planet's surface environment' said Dr. Aaron Zent, a Urey co-investigator. Tori Hoelher explained his 'follow the engergy' approach to looking for life on Mars 'any information we can collect that helps us narrow down our targets, and narrow down how we should outfit our missions, is something we should carefully consider,' he said. 'By considering the availability of energy we have the ability to quantify the prospects for life, the ability to potentially prioritize the targets.' 'Éthe problem with understanding life Éis that we only have one data point,' said Chris McKay 'You need another data point.' For more information see http://www.thespacereview.com/article/827/1

Last week the Kepler mission Science Director and former Astronaut Scientist Janice Voss gave a talk for the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures at Foothill College. The non-technical, illustrated presentation was entitled 'Searching for Earth-like Planets: NASA's Kepler Mission'

A number of our scientists attended NASA Advisory Council Workshop on Lunar Science in Tempe Arizona last week. Presentations from our scientists included: Enabling Astrophysics at the Moon. S.P. Worden, M. Bicay, Y.J. Pendleton, and J.L. Heldmann Dust Analysis at the Moon. Y.J. Pendleton, S.P. Worden, M. Bicay, and J.L. Heldmann The Promise of Lunar Science With Small Spacecraft. M. Bicay, S.P. Worden, Y.J. Pendleton, and J.L. Heldmann Return to the Moon: Site Selection Process and Considerations for NASA's Lunar Exploration Program. J.L. Heldmann, J.M. Moore, P.C. Lee, B. Girten, and C.P. McKay and the poster 'The Scientific Rationale and Technical Approach for Drilling on the Moon and Mars' by Carol Stoker.

Lunar and Planetary Science Presentations

McKay is on 7 abstracts, including 'Spaceward Bound: Field Training for the Next Generation of SpaceExplorers' and 'Science Goals for Deep Drilling inIce-rich Permafrost on Mars' with Stoker, C.; Briggs, G.; Cooper, G. A.; & Gulick, V.

Sandford is on 6 abstracts including 'Overview of the Results of the Organics PET Study of the Cometary Samples Returned from Comet Wild 2 by the Stardust Mission' and 'Identification of Aromatic Organic Matter from Comet 81P/Wild 2 by ltra-L2MS'

Bishop is on 14 total on which she the first author of two 'Multi-Spectral Study of Phyllosilicates and Applications to Mars' and 'Sulfates in Juventae Chasma as Seen by CRISM' and two first authored by her NASA post-doctoral fellow Adrian Brown 'High Resolution Observations of Korolev Crater and Mrs. Chippy's Ring During Summer by CRISM and HiRISE' and 'Evolution of Water Ice Mound Deposit in "Louth" Crater as Observed by CRISM and HiRISE'

David Blake is on 4 including being first author on 'Progress in the Development of CheMin: A Definitive Mineralogy Instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL'09) Rover' and that first authored by senior NPP fellow Jen Blank entitled 'Oxygen Isotope Variation in Ca-Mg Carbonate Cements in the California Coast Range Ophiolite: Geochemistry of Martian Analog Environments'

Cabrol is on 4 abstracts including 'Soil Sedimentology, Textures and Dynamics at Gusev Crater from Spirit's Microscopic Imager'

Heldmann, J. L. is on two, including first author on 'Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission: Opportunities for Observations of the Impact Plumes from Ground-based and Space-based Telescopes' along with Colaprete, Wooden, & Briggs as co-authors.

Cruikshank is on 6 including 'Physical Properties of Transneptunian Objects' and co author on the abstract by Emery entitled 'Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Trojan Asteroids'

Cuzzi is on 6 including first author on 'Towards a Scenario for Primary Accretion of Primitive Bodies'

Dalton is first author of 'Icy Saturnian Satellite Surface Compositions: Mapping and Modeling'

Gulick is on 8 abstracts including being first author on 'Early HiRISE Observations of Fluvial and Hydrothermal Features' and 'Student and Public Participation in Acquiring and Analyzing HiRISE Images'

Jeff Moore is on 8 including being first author on 'Topography of Endogenic Features on Saturnian Mid-Sized Satellites'

Ross Beyer (SST) made two presentations at the 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference: Deans, M. C.; Meyer, C.; Lee, P.; and Beyer, R. 2007. Finding Space Science Images in Large Databases by Similar Appearance. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2007LPI....38.2439D and Bland, M. T.; Beyer, R. A.; and Showman, A. P. 2007. The Ancient Heat Flow and Elastic Thickness on Enceladus: Constraints from Photoclinometry and Numerical Modeling http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2007LPI....38.1653B

Roush is on two including being first author on 'Classification of Mars Analogue Mixtures and End-Member Minerals Using Self-Organizing Maps'

Bonaccorsi is first author of 'Searching for Organics During the Robotic Mars Analog Rio Tinto Drilling Experiment: Ground Truth and Contamination Issues'

Wooden is on 2 including being first author on 'Comet Grains and Implications for Heating and Radial Mixing in the Protoplanetary Disk'

Zahnle has two including being first author on 'Transfer ofImpact Ejecta from Io to Europa'

Drs. Tori Hoehler and David Des Marais were guests on NPR's Science Friday Broadcasting from the annual AAAS meeting. They spoke about 'following the water' and the energy on Mars, and the likelyhood of life there.

Dr. Tori Hoehler was also featured on in articles about the search for life on Mars in the San Jose Mercury News, the Kansas City Star and over a dozen other news papers. 'So far we've looked for water, but life also needs raw materials and sustained energy. That's the next thing we should be looking for on MarsÉIf life is present on Mars now, it has to be subsurface,' Hoehler said.

Jeff Cuzzi and Chris McKay participated in the HQ Senior Review of the Cassini Extended Mission proposal, at JPL. The review panel, chaired by Melissa McGrath (Chief Scientist at MSFC), and on which Chris is a member, was to determine whether the two-year extended mission adressed the highest priority science goals and was suitably responsive to new discoveries by Cassini during its prime mission to date. Jeff presented the Saturn's Rings story; the atmosphere was covered by Andy Ingersoll; the satellites, including Titan, by Jonathan Lunine, and the magnetosphere by Bill Kurth.

Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

K. A. Warren-Rhodes, was first author and Chris McKay a co-author on the paper 'Nanoclimate environment of cyanobacterial communities in China's hot and cold hyperarid deserts' which appeared recently (Vol. 112) of the Journal of Geophysical Research. The article is about the cyanobacterial communities in high-altitude deserts in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau with the coldest and driest recorded extremes on Earth.

Drs. Richard Quinn and Aaron Zent, Co-Investigators on the Urey instrument are quoted in a recent articles about the project on PhysOrg.com and a NASA Mission web page. Urey is a Mars organic and oxidant detector that will be aboard ESA's ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013. 'By measuring the reaction of the sensor films with chemicals present in the Martian soil and atmosphere, we can establish if organisms could survive and if evidence of past life would be preserved,' said SST SETI Coop scientist Dr. Richard Quinn. 'In order to improve our chances of finding chemical evidence of life on Mars, and designing human habitats and other equipment that will function well on Mars' surface, we need to improve our understanding of oxidants in the planet's surface environment' said Dr. Aaron Zent, SST civil servant scientist.

Following his talk at the University of Toronto about biomarkers an interview with Dr. Max Bernstein entitled 'Twinkies, NASA and Babylon 5' appeared in the Toronto Star.

Text Box:

Timothy J. Lee and Louis J. Allamandola are co-authors on a paper that was just accepted at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Young Min Rhee (Berkeley) entitled 'Charged Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Clusters and the Galactic Extended Red Emission.' The image at left (NASA, ESA, H. Van Winckel and M. Cohen) is of the planetary nebula 'the red rectangle' the strongest source of the Extended Red Emission.

Dr. Yvonne Pendleton is attending the 11^th annual International space university in Strasbourg this week. On Thursday Feb 22^nd she presents a paper on 'Supporting Human Lunar Exploration: Dust Analysis on the Moon.'

Text Box: Dr. Brad Dalton (SETI, Ames) went to Goddard Space Flight Center February 12th and 13th for the first meeting of the new Enceladus Flagship Mission Science Definition Team meeting. 'We are really excited about the possibility of sending a sample capture probe through the plumes Cassini observed erupting from the south polar region,' said Brad. A number of hurdles would have to be overcome to make this a reality. 'There are a number of unique characteristics of Enceladus, from its tectonics to its orbital dynamics, that make this very different from the other icy satellite missions under study,' he added.

Another new paper out of the division is 'Follow the Water: Applying a Mars Exploration Strategy to the Arkaroola Analog Region, South Australia.' By Heldmann, Brown, Clarke, Martinez, Rupert, & Thomas. In Mars Analog Research, Ed. J.D.A. Clarke, American Astronautical Society, Science and Technology Series, Vol. 111, p. 71-92.<

Dr. Scott Sandford spoke at the special humorous science session at the AAAS meeting presenting the obviously false 'Evidence that UFOs are powered internal combustion engines.' This session, organized by 'The annals of improbable research' featured a number of ig Nobel prize winners and a range of papers that were pointless, and or patently absurd.

The latest (second) edition of the Encyclopedia of the Solar System is out and it features chapters by Space Science division scientists including 'Interiors of the Giant Planets' by Mark Marley and Johnathan Fortney 'Solar System Dynamics: Regular and Chaotic Motion' by Jack Lissauer, and 'Astrobiology' by Chris McKay and Wanda L. Davis.

You can purchase this book online.

Drs. David Des Marais and David Morrison are chairing a session at the upcoming AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco. The session entitled, 'The New Mars: Habitability of a Neighbor World' on the morning of February 16 will include talks by scientists from all over the world including some from the SS division such as Tori M. Hoehler who will present 'A Follow the Energy Approach for Mars Exploration' and David Des Marais who will present 'Assessing the Potential for Ancient Habitable Environments in Mars' Gusev Crater'. The AAAS will host a press briefing on February 15 at 10 am that will address both this session and the recent HiRise discovery of water-related deposits in Vallis Marineris and Dr. Des Marais will be taking part.

Scott Sandford was quoted in an article entitled 'Some surprises dropped by Stardust' that appeared on www.kitsapsun.com in the technology section. 'We're picking up this thing that has traveled 3 billion miles to get to us,' he said referring to the capsule from the Stardust mission. You can see images that Scott took during the recovery at http://www.astrochem.org/stardust/

Brad Dalton spoke to the third graders of Garden Gate Elementary in Cupertino on Thursday February 8th. They have just completed a science unit on the Solar System, and each student must complete a report on a planet or moon. 'It was as exciting for me as it was for the kids,' says Brad, 'I was pleased to see that they all knew about the possible ocean on Europa.' Dr. Dalton took the 120 students on a tour of the Solar System using spacecraft images, some from his own research, and explained the recent demotion of Pluto.

LCROSS web items: On Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m., KQED's science program Quest aired a report about the LCROSS mission featuring LCROSS PI and SS division scientist Anthony Colaprete. For more info (and links to some cool previews), see: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/kqedQuest.htm

An article by Jennifer Heldmann on LCROSS was posted on Space.com and SETI.org see: http://space.com/searchforlife/seti_lcross_over_070125.html

Lunar Dust: Many members of the space science division took part in the NESC Workshop on Lunar Dust that is being held last week at Ames. Participants included Yvonne Pendleton, Farid Salama, Andy Mattioda, Sandy Davis, Chris McKay, Denis Richard, Ted Roush and others. They are contributing to the 'Basic Research' splinter group

Text Box: A book by Andrew Pohorille and Chris Chipot, a former NRC fellow at Ames, currently at CNRS in Nancy, titled 'Free Energy Calculations: Theory and Applications in Chemistry and Biology' has been just published by Springer Verlag. The book is an exhaustive monograph that provides a unified view of the many methods aimed at estimating free energies of chemical and biological systems from computer simulations, which are at the center of modern theoretical chemistry.

Niko Finke, a postdoctoral researcher in the exobiology branch, has been awarded a prestigious Marie Curie Outgoing International Fellowship from the European Union. This highly competitive fellowship supports postdoctoral researchers from EU countries to conduct research projects consisting of an overseas component and a component conducted at an EU institution. Dr. Finke's fellowship, which allows him to continue research begun under the NASA Postdoctoral Program, will be conducted with Tori Hoehler of the exobiology branch. The EU portion of his fellowship will be hosted by the University of Southern Denmark, a collaborator on ARC's NASA Astrobiology Institute project.

Tori Hoehler of the exobiology branch presented two invited talks in Washington, DC. The first entitled, 'An energy balance concept of habitability' was given at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory. The second talk, entitled 'Energetic habitability: Constraints on life in the subsurface' was presented at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Farid Salama is attending the First Workshop on Titan - Observations, Experiments, Computations, and Modeling in Honolulu, Hawaii, this week. He gave a talk on 'Formation Processes of Carbon Aerosols in The Atmosphere of Titan: Laboratory And Theoretical Investigations'

Dr. Desmarias holding a stromatolite Featured Scientist: David Des Marais is the subject of this weeks special highlight.

Dr. Des Marais delivered the prestigious Carl Sagan Memorial Lecture at this year's Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco in December 2006. Several hundred AGU meeting participants attended the lecture which was entitled, "Exploring Mars broadens the biogeosciences into the realm of astrobiology

He recently completed his duties as co-editor and chapter author of the new book "Geology and Habitability of Terrestrial Planets," to be published as a volume of the Springer ISSI (International Space Science Institute) Space Science Series. The book reviews the interplay between the geologic, atmospheric, geophysical, magnetospheric and biological aspects of planetary environments.

In addition Dr. Des Marais completed a chapter for the new book 'The Martian Surface: Composition, Mineralogy, and Physical Properties,' edited by Dr. J. Bell. David's chapter reviews those aspects of exploration that address the search for past and present habitable environments as well as Martian life.

Other highlights:

Scott Sandford has the 'quote of the week' in the January 22, 2007 issue of Chemical and Engineering News (Volume 85, Number 4) and is quoted and mentioned in an article about the Stardust Mission (p. 41-42) which also features former division scientist Jason Dworkin now at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Dr. Brad Dalton has been asked to serve on the Science Definition Team for a possible flagship mission to Saturn's moon, Enceladus where H₂O geysers were recently observed erupting by the Cassini spacecraft. Brad will be traveling to Goddard Space flight Center in February to confer with other team members and draft scientific objectives which will be used in defining the mission requirements.

Education and Public Outreach:

Dr. Jennifer Heldmann taught three classes of 2nd and 3rd grade students at Landels Elementary School in Mountain View, CA on 26 January 2007 for their annual 'Superbowl Science Day' Her lesson was on 'Cratering in the Solar System

Dr. Farid Salama gave a science presentation on "The Universe" to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at the FASSV primary School in Sunnyvale on Thu 1/25. It was very well received and the children were very motivated Dale's meteorites and liquid N₂ were the highlights of the presentation.

New Horizons scientists Jeff Moore and Dale Cruikshank took part in a press briefing on Thursday Jan. 18^th about the New Horizons Mission at Jupiter. This was to preview the flight of the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft through the Jupiter system. Jeff Moore is the Imaging Node Leader for New Horizons.

Dr. Dale Cruikshank has been chosen by the Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) to serve on a Science Definition Team that will study the scientific objectives, technical feasibility and cost of a Flagship Mission to Titan. Cruikshank is the only Ames person invited to serve on any of these teams.

NASA Post-doctoral fellow Rosalba Bonaccorsi traveled to ESA/ESTEC (Noordwijk) in the Netherlands January 16 to 21 for a Panel Meeting (Payload Confirmation Science Review) for the Pasteur ExoMars-Mission.

Max Bernstein has gone to Canada to speak to the University of Toronto Astronomy and Space Exploration Society (UTASX) about the search for life in the Solar System. His interview with Jen Gerson will appear in the Toronto Star this week and his interview with Andrew Luck-Baker will be heard on the BBC and appear on the BBC web site wed. Jan 24^th.

NASA Post-doctoral fellow Dr. Ross Beyer has been selected as a Participating Scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission as a part of the HiRISE instrument team. This was the first proposal that Dr. Beyer wrote!

text cover The new text Meteorites and the early Solar System II has contributions from divison scientists including: Steven Charnley, co-author of 'Chemical processes in the interstellar medium' and 'The physics and chemistry of Nebular Evolution' Jeff Cuzzi, first author of 'Particle-gas dynamics and primary accretion' and co-author of 'Timescales of the solar planetary disc' Scott Sandford co-author of 'Population of starting materials available for Solar System construction' and George Cooper co-author of 'The nature and distribution of the organic material in carbonaceous chondrites and interplanetary dust particles.

Dr. Jeff Cuzzi, gave a talk on the evening of Monday Jan. 15 in the Morrison Planetarium's Dean Lecture Series, on the subject of "Saturn's Rings: Ongoing Studies by Cassini' Dr. Cuzzi is the Interdisciplinary Scientist for Rings and Dust for the Cassini mission, and he leads the Rings Discipline Working Group.

Dr. Max Bernstein gave a talk at Eisenhower Elementary School in Santa Clara on Thursday Jan 11th.

Dr. Jen Heldmann gave a talk on Saturday, 6 January 2007 to the Eastbay Astronomical Society at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, CA titled 'Gullies on Mars: Theories, Observations, and Numerical Modeling Results'. She also gave a presentation titled 'Findings of the Mars Forward Lunar Objectives Science Analysis Group (MFLO-SAG)' at the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) meeting in Washington, D.C. on January 9-10, 2007

Dr. Jeffrey Cuzzi has been named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). One of the few honors that AGU confers, Fellowship is awarded to scientists who have attained acknowledged eminence in one or more branches of geophysics. Dr. Cuzzi won this honor for his contributions to understanding planetary rings, and to understanding the evolution of solids in the early protoplanetary nebula.

Dr. Mark Marley has been invited to sit on the joint NSF/NASA ExoPlanet Task Force a subcommittee to advise the agencies on the future of the search for and the study of exo-planets, earth-like planets, and habitable environments around other stars.

Dr. David Koch (Deputy Principal Investigator for the Kepler Mission) has been invited to the science organizing committee of an IAU symposium on transiting planets to be held in Boston in May 2008.

Dr. Max Bernstein was interviewed by Andrew Luck-Baker of BBC radio via the KEZR radio station in San Jose. This interview was about a paper of his that appeared in the Oct 29th issue of Phil Trans (B) on 'Conditions for the emergence of life on the early Earth'

Dr. Scott Sandford was interviewed by Chemical and Engineering News which is planning on putting out an article about the Stardust Mission, with an emphasis on the organics, in their January 22nd issue.

AAS Meeting: Dr. Xander Tielens is the organizer of the Special session on SAGE 'Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution' at the 209^th AAS meeting in Seattle.This is a Spitzer legacy program which has mapped the full LMC using IRAC and MIPS. The data was just delivered to the Spitzer Science center and this is the first presentation of the results to the general astronomical community.

Dr. Farid Salama gave an invited presentation to the AAS Council Meeting on the proposal for establishing a Laboratory Astrophysics Working Group within the AAS. The AAS Council was very supportive of this initiative and voted unanimously to support the motion.

Urey Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector (an instrument to investigate organics and oxidant materials on Mars) was selected for the ExoMars Mission. Division scientists Drs. Aaron Zent and Richard Quinn are responsible for the MOI component of this instrument. The principal investigator is Jeffrey Bada, University of California at San Diego.

Archived Highlights from 2006