Spring

On May 11, LPL had the pleasure of hosting the University of Arizona Press reception celebrating the release of Mars: Pristine Beauty of the Red Planet. With explanatory captions in 24 languages and a gallery of more than 200 images, this distinctive volume brings a timely and clear look at the work of an active NASA mission and HiRISE. Through vivid and beautiful images, this book underscores the need for such a camera on future orbiters, especially as more landing missions are planned. 

On May 10, LPL Professor Dante Lauretta was inducted into the Boys & Girls Clubs of America's Hall of Fame. On May 12, Professor Lauretta was honored as the recipient of the University of Arizona’s Alumni Achievement Award for 2017. Lauretta received the award during the University's Commencement ceremony. He also will be named as the UA College of Humanities Alumnus of the Year at an event to be held on October 27. The Alumni Achievement Award is the highest honor the UA Alumni Association can bestow on graduates of the University. It is given to an alumnus or alumna who has attained prominence in his or her field of endeavor and demonstrated outstanding service to the UA.

Lauretta is principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. He is an expert in the analysis of extraterrestrial materials such as lunar samples, meteorites and comet particles. His work contributes to our understanding of the chemistry of the early solar system and the origin of complex molecules that may have led to life on Earth. Under Lauretta's leadership, OSIRIS-REx aims to further public engagement in science. The mission's website features entertaining and engaging videos about planetary science, and mission staff appear as guest speakers at local conventions and in classrooms.

"I am honored to receive the UA Alumni Achievement Award," Lauretta said. "The University of Arizona has been an essential part of my career from my undergraduate days through my faculty appointment. I am proud to have studied here and to now be contributing to the UA's important education mission."

by Eric Christensen

The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) operates two survey telescopes on Mt. Lemmon (Tucson, Arizona) in search of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), or asteroids and comets that can approach the orbit of the Earth to less than 45 million kilometers. In 2016, CSS deployed new cameras at both survey telescopes: the 1.5-m prime focus reflector (figure 1) and the 0.7-m Schmidt (figure 2). These cameras, built locally in Tucson by Spectral Instruments Inc., increased the fields of view of each telescope by factors of 4x and 2.4x, respectively. These upgrades have allowed CSS telescopes to survey significantly larger areas of sky, leading to an uptick in the discovery rate.  

2016 was a record year for NEO discovery: CSS led the league with 930 discoveries (a factor of 1.5x better than CSS’s previous best year), and together with other surveys, found a total of 1,889 NEOs (a factor of 1.2x more than the previous best year). The first four months of 2017 show similarly encouraging results. CSS is a long-term leader in the NEO discovery effort, accounting for over 45% of the known catalog of NEOs (figure 3).

At CSS we continue to work to optimize our workflow, modify our survey strategies, and tune our systems to maximum sensitivity. The recent instrumentation upgrades have provided a significant boost in discovery capacity, leading to new opportunities and challenges for the survey.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

After 45 years of service to the University of Arizona as a faculty member and as Director/Department Head (LPL/Planetary Sciences, 1977-1981), Professor William Hubbard will transition to Professor Emeritus in May.

Professor Hubbard earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1967 from the University of California, Berkeley (Electron Conduction in Degenerate Stellar Matter with L.G. Henyey). He joined LPL in 1972 as Associate Professor, and was promoted to Professor in 1975. In No Longer Points of Light, Bill recalls his early days at LPL: "I was recruited by Gerard Kuiper. He was a very energetic person, especially given his age. He was very enthusiastic about his new department, and he took me on a tour of all of his observing sites around the area....He talked to me about where he thought the Laboratory was heading and what he thought my role would be in it....The way he expressed it to me was that the Department was going to be an essential component for keeping the Laboratory in existence. At that time it was only LPL; there was no Department. He thought that in order to ensure the longevity of the whole enterprise that we needed an academic arm; we needed to have graduate students, we needed to have a teaching program."

Professor Hubbard has been the recipient of many honors and awards throughout the course of his distinguished career, including election as a Fellow to the American Geophysical Union (1991) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2003). He was awarded the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize in Planetary Sciences by the Division for Planetary Sciences (AAS) in 2005. In 2012, Professor Hubbard received NASA Group Achievement Awards for the Juno (mission) proposal and for Juno mission development, launch, and early operations. He was honored with the Blitzer Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Physics and Related Sciences (University of Arizona) in 2013. Professor Hubbard's former students include Jonathan Fortney (Ph.D., 2004), Maki Hattori (M.S., 2008), Joseph MacFarlane (Ph.D., 1983), Robert Marcialis (Ph.D., 1990), Mark Marley (Ph.D., 1990), and Wayne Slattery (Ph.D., 1976).

Mark Marley, Jonathan Fortney, Bob Marcialis, and Didier Saumon pose with their former advisor, Bill Hubbard.

LPL alum Cliff Stoll sent his greetings and a personalized Klein bottle.

Bill was gifted with a planetary orb created by Philabum Glass.

Didier Saumon and Ilaria Pascucci with the guest of honor.

by Margaret Landis

This semester’s fieldtrip, led by Joe Spitale, was to southwestern Utah, with major stops at Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, to explore the geology of the Colorado Plateau, especially the series of sedimentary layers that form the Grand Staircase. The faulting, stratigraphy, and uplift all contribute to the area's unique geological features.

While making the drive up to Utah, the group stopped at Walnut Canyon and the East Kaibab monocline to discuss the National Parks system/federal land management policy and the formation of monoclines, synclines, and anticlines. Once in Utah, we spent some time in Zion National Park, discussing the overall geology (including landslide deposits near the Springdale entrance to the park), cross bedding (spectacular examples were on the road through the park), and erosional/fluvial processes. One spectacular example was Weeping Rock, where groundwater has started to carve part of an amphitheater-shaped feature while it also cascaded over the side of the formation.

The stratigraphy and erosion observed in Zion was also showcased at Bryce Canyon National Park, where the limestone and other sedimentary rocks of the park had been modified by frost heave processes into hoodoos. After discussing the overall geology, formation of faults and joints, and hoodoos, we hiked down into the formation on the Navajo Loop trail. The sedimentary layers in these parks are part of the Grand Staircase formation, a classic example of a sedimentary sequence with the most recent layers exposed in Bryce Canyon, descending all the way to the Grand Canyon.

In addition to Bryce and Zion National Parks, the LPL field trippers made stops at points of interest including Mammoth Cave (a lava tube created during one of the sporadic periods of volcanism in the area) and Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. As formations like the Vermillion Cliffs continue to erode, the spectacularly colored sediment can concentrate in dune formations, like the Coral Pink dunes. We also stopped to see dinosaur tracks, an interesting feature of the Jurassic aged Kayenta and Moenave layers of the Grand Staircase. 

Donna Viola gives a talk on the formation of dinosaur tracks in the Grand Staircase.

Kyle Pearson speaking about the formation of Weeping Rock and sapping channels. Water can be seen cascading from the formation in the background.

Spring 2017 field trip group at Brian Head, a vantage point where many layers of the upper Grand Staircase can be observed.

On April 15, Regents' Professor Renu Malhotra presented a TEDx Portland talk about Planet Nine.

The papers of Ewen Whitaker, who passed away last October (2016), have been added to the University of Arizona Libraries History of Science (Pioneers of Planetary Science) collection. The Whitaker materials are indexed along with documents from Gerard P. Kuiper, Charles P. Sonett, Donald M. Hunten, Tom Gehrels, Michael J. Drake, and Peter Smith.