* Astronomy

A swarm of 350 meteorite experts are expected to descend on Tucson, US, for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society on August 13 - 17.
Coincidentally, that week also promises to be one of the best Perseid meteor shower shows seen from Tucson in years.
The Meteoritical Society is the world's largest organisation devoted to the study of meteorites and other extraterrestrial material. The non-profit scholarly organisation was founded in 1933 and now includes members from 33 countries. They specialize in planetary science topics that include meteorites, cosmic dust, asteroids and comets, natural satellites, planets, impacts and the origins of the solar system.
The 70th annual meeting opens during the night when the Perseids meteor shower is at its maximum, during new moon. Meeting organizers will kick off the conference with an Aug. 12 meteor shower viewing party (for conferees only) under the dark skies at the meeting site, the JW Marriott Starrpass Resort & Spa, 3800 W. Starr Pass Blvd.
Scientists will give more than 300 talks and poster presentations on topics ranging from early solar system formation and planetary impact cratering to astrobiology and results from the recent Genesis and Stardust space missions, said UA geosciences Professor Timothy Jull, chairman of the organizing committee.

Meeting highlights include:
Wednesday, Aug. 15 - Peter Smith of UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, principal investigator for the Phoenix Scout Mission to Mars, will give the society's Barringer Lecture. The Phoenix Mission is to launch Aug. 3. The spacecraft will land in Mars' northern Arctic region in May 2008 and use a robotic arm and deck of sophisticated science instruments to explore questions on Mars' potential to support life, the history of water and changes in Martian climate.

* Monday, Aug. 13 - A special session on Arizona's Meteor Crater (Barringer Crater) and other impact craters.
* Monday, Aug. 13 - A special session on advances in dating the exposure ages and irradiation history of meteorites by the 'cosmogenic radionuclides' they contain. Cosmogenic radionuclides are radioactive elements produced by cosmic rays in space. The university's NSF-Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility, which Jull directs, focuses much research in this area.
* Monday, Aug. 13 - A special session on protoplanetary dust.
* Tuesday, Aug. 14 - A special session on chondrules and chondrule formation. Chondrules are small grains of minerals found in some meteorites. Scientists believe the minerals formed as hot gases condensed during solar system formation.

The UA geosciences department and UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory are hosting the conference. UA conference sponsors also include the College of Science; the UA departments of planetary sciences geosciences and physics; the NSF-Arizona AMS Laboratory, the Southwest Meteorite Centre, Steward Observatory; the Life and Planets Astrobiology centre (LaPLACE) and the University of Arizona Press. Meeting sponsors also include the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute, the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Barringer Crater Company, the Tucson Visitors and Convention Bureau and others.

Source University of Arizona

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