POSSE says go to this: Lead scientist for Mars Curiosity Rover, John Grotzinger to speak Friday 10/18 (Hot Science Cool Talks)

Hi Y'all,

POSSE here with our first update for 2013. We'd like to tell y'all about this cool talk with the Mars Curiosity Rover lead scientist, free and open to the public this Friday.

Hot Science - Cool Talks Presents "The Roving Search for Life on Mars" with John Grotzinger
From the Environmental Science Institute's website: Friday October 18, 2013, 07:00pm - 08:30pm:      Image: JPL/NASA
One of the most remarkable feats of modern society is the successful landing and deployment of a roving laboratory on the surface of the fourth planet from the Sun. Caltech professor and geobiologist John Grotzinger will describe what the Curiosity rover has discovered since landing on the Red Planet, and how the Mars Science Laboratory onboard Curiosity will continue our search for signs of extraterrestrial life there. Learn more here: http://www.esi.utexas.edu/k-12-a-the-community/hot-science-cool-talks/the-roving-search-for-life-on-mars What is the Lecture About? NASA's second rover named "Opportunity" produced dramatic evidence that long ago, at least one area of Mars stayed wet for an extended period, suggesting that conditions could have been suitable for sustaining microbial life. NASA's third Mars rover "Curiosity" is an extraordinary machine that carries the biggest, most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the Martian surface. Dr. John Grotzinger is the lead scientist for Curiosity's mission to explore Mars' past climate and geology.  He will describe what the rover has discovered since landing on the Red Planet, and how the Mars Science Laboratory onboard Curiosity will continue our search for signs of extraterrestrial life there. Location: UT Campus, Welch Hall (WEL) Auditorium  Schedule: Friday, October 18, 2013 5:45-7pm: Pre-lecture Fair 7-8:15pm: Lecture Directions: Welch Hall (WEL) is located at the intersection of Speedway, and 24th St. on UT's Campus in Austin TX. Click here for a parking map and other details. Check it out! Also, news flash: We've elected new senior officers; President - Grace Hartzell Vice President - Tina Andry Secretary - Sofiane Achour. And there is a new Facebook page for POSSE: https://www.facebook.com/groups/422583994513687/   More info coming soon on the first general meeting! -Tim

Funding opportunities for space science conferences!

Undergraduate Planetary Science Research Conference

Sunday, March 18th, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Town Hall Exhibit Center (The Woodlands, TX)

As part of the NASA SMD Year of the Solar System (YSS), an Undergraduate Planetary Science Research Conference is being hosted in conjunction with the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC).

The Undergraduate Planetary Science Research Conference includes:

• Panels on “How to Choose the Grad School Right for You,” “Alternative Careers in Science,” and “Women in Planetary Science”
• Poster sessions where students will present their posters to other student and to the scientific community
• “Meeting Mentors,” which will pair students with a scientist for part of the LPSC meeting, so students can learn how to engage at a scientific conference
• Opportunities to meet other undergraduate researchers, graduate students, and scientists
• Undergraduate students currently conducting research in planetary sciences, astrobiology, and lunar sciences are eligible. To apply, please go to https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meeting_portal/iofi/index.cfm?mtg=yssurc2012/.  CORRECT LINK: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meeting_portal/iofi/index.cfm?mtg=yssurc2012

Applications are due by close of business February 10, 2012.

Some travel support will be available to students who qualify. Priority will be given to students of diverse backgrounds. Students are encouraged to attend LPSC and the travel support includes registration for and participation in LPSC. For additional information, please contact Dr. Emily CoBabe-Ammann ecobabe@spaceeducation.org.

I'll be submitting an abstract and I encourage anyone who is interested to submit/attend. Conferences are great ways to get to know people in fields you are interested in and see lots of new, interesting research. 

-T

POSSE field trip, meteor showers, Europa and much, much more.

So our last meeting of the year is coming up on December 1st. Depending on how things pan out we might either have a speaker or just meet so that people can turn in badge forms for the field trip if they haven't gotten around to it by then. Who knows, we might even put a movie on.

For those you of you who might be viewing this and not aware of our Spring trip, POSSE is going to visit NASA sometime in February. We'll be getting a behind the scenes look at what goes on at the headquarters of a national space program and looking at lunar rocks; we might even get to touch 'em.  
A couple of fun things to look at:


Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.


The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

You might also want to make note of the 13th/14th of December as the Geminids are coming, oh God. No, you don't need to grab your tin foil hats, they aren't here to steal your thoughts.

The Geminids are a meteor shower which peaks annually around December 13th/14th. Rates this year are predicted to be as high as 100 meteors per hour, so bust out your sleeping bags and get away from the city lights if you want to see them all.

Upcoming talks: 

Tuesday, November 22nd from 12:30-1:30pm in JGB 3.222

•  Dr. Jack Holt will be giving a talk titled "A New View of Ice on Mars:  Viscous Fluid, Sedimentary Rock, and Paleoclimate Record"

Wednesday, November 23rd from 12-1pm in JGB 3.222

•  iPGST (informal Petrology, Geochemistry, Structure and Tectonics talks) will be hosting a speaker who I believe will be talking about something related to Mars. I'll update this when I get more information.
UPDATE: 

Speaker: Romy Hanna

Title: Using thermal infared (TIR) spectroscopy to determine the mineralogy and geologic setting of intracrater materials in Amazonis Planitia, Mars

Lastly (but certainly not least):

A paper by UT postdoc Britney Schmidt co-authored by Senior Research Scientist Don Blankenship was published in Nature on the 16th. The paper, titled "Active formation of 'chaos terrain' over shallow subsurface water on Europa", presents evidence for sub-surface "lakes" on Jupiter's moon.

Read more about the paper here.

Britney Schmidt

Don Blankenship