Spring

The Kuiper Space Sciences undergraduate classroom (308) was the site of LPL's first (we think) marriage proposal. Two undergraduate students who met in Tim Swindle's NATS course several years ago became engaged when the prospective groom surprised his fiancee with a proposal in 308. Thanks to Uwe Fink for coming in on a Saturday to facilitate the surprise!

On Saturday, January 30, 2010, LPL hosted the Arizona Meteorite Exhibition. This free public outreach event brought together meteorite hunters, collectors, and enthusiasts as part of an educational exhibition of the largest collection of Arizona meteorites ever gathered in one place. The goal was to exhibit at least one piece of every Arizona meteorite, with the help of statewide institutional partners and many private individuals. Among the items on display were specimens from the two observed and recovered Arizona meteorite falls: the Holbrook fall (1912) and the recent Whetstone Mountains fall (June 23, 2009).

Melinda Hutson (1996) traveled to Tucson for the event, bringing several Arizona meteorite samples that she had classified. Melinda and Alex Ruzicka (1996) run the 
Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory at Portland State University. Anna Spitz (1991) attended the exhibition to represent science outreach and education available through Biosphere 2 and the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center.

Dolores Hill (Senior Research Specialist and Maria Schuchardt (Program Coordinator Senior) organized the exhibition, which also featured lectures by Ed Beshore and Dante Lauretta. We estimate that approximately 350 guests came through the Kuiper building to learn about meteorites and LPL's work in that field. Dyer Lytle has made available some of his photos of the event.

Thanks to Dolores and Maria for all of their excellent work in putting together the exhibition!

Tiffany Kataria, second-year graduate student, was awarded the Fall 2009 GTA Excellence Award for her work with Elisabetta Pierazzo's PTYS 214 course. Tiffany will receive a trip to the conference of her choice. Congratulations, Tiffany!

Congratulations, David Choi!

David Choi, Ph.D., November 3, 2009, The Meteorology of Giant Planets Revealed Through Automated Cloud Feature Tracking (Showman).

Welcome to the Spring 2010 Newsletter! LPL is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. To help mark this birthday, we're holding a variety of outreach events, such as a series of public evening lectures including Bill Hartmann, Mark Sykes, Faith Vilas, and Dale Cruikshank. The highlight of the anniversary year will be the LPL Homecoming Dinner and Symposium. All alumni and other friends of LPL are invited to celebrate together in Tucson on October 1 and 2, 2010, just prior to the DPS meeting in Pasadena on October 3-8.

We are proud to announce that Dale Cruikshank will be our banquet speaker on Friday evening (Oct. 1). We invite you to attend the Saturday (Oct. 2) symposium and give a 15-minute talk discussing your current research or other activities. There isn't time for all of the alums to speak, but there will be space for poster displays, so if you just want to bring a representative poster from DPS or another meeting, you can put that up.

Our purpose is not to have a themed workshop, but instead to let the family catch up on each other. Most LPL grads attend DPS, but a significant number attend other research meetings, or have moved on to other non-research pursuits. We want to bring as many people together as possible.

Information and registration is available on the LPL 50th Anniversary site.

We hope you can join the celebration!