We’ll be watching two sessions at the upcoming fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union with special interest. One will be a briefing held at NASA headquarters on December 14 and available via satellite for a live question and answer period. The topic: the Deep Impact spacecraft, which will launch a copper projectile into the surface of Comet Tempel 1 on 4 July 2005. The 370 kilogram (820 pound) “impactor” is to hit the surface at some 37,000 kilometers (23,000 miles) per hour, creating a crater that could be over 100 meters in size. Data will be collected by Deep Impact’s cameras and other instrumentation, to be supplemented by ground-based astronomy from Earth.
The second session with outer Solar System implications, to be held on the 16th of December, will highlight the latest findings from Cassini as it again makes a Titan flyby, this one the last chance scientists will have to study the Huygens landing site before that probe’s January descent. Two days later, on the 15th, Cassini will make its closest flyby of Dione, the curious Saturnian moon that seems to show signs of internal activity.
The AGU meets in San Francisco from December 13-17. More information available here. This database of fall meeting abstracts is a handy way to study the offerings.
