Planetary scientists to align in Madison

Public lectures, ‘star party’ will be part of astronomy conference

From Oct. 11-16, Madison will be the focal point of the solar system for the community of scientists who study the planets and the menagerie of solar system objects as the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Science (DPS) meets here.

Full program schedule, information

Hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center, the meeting will take place at the Monona Terrace Convention Center and will feature a full menu of scientific talks, workshops for teachers and a public exhibition.

The DPS scientific program, according to local meeting coordinator Sanjay Limaye, will feature nearly 500 talks and papers on the planets, their moons, comets, asteroids, and planetary rings, among others. More than 600 scientists from around the country and world are expected to attend.

“This is the only time Madison is going to get a conference like this,” according to Limaye, a scientist at UW–Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center. He noted the meeting, typically held on the East or West Coasts, was last held in the Midwest in St. Louis more than 20 years ago.

The late Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan, one of 10 scientists who founded DPS 30 years ago, will be honored this year with the Gerald P. Kuiper Award.

For the public, there will be a special exhibition celebrating nearly four decades of space exploration. The exhibition will include displays, full-scale models of spacecraft and posters.

The free exhibition will be held at the Monona Terrace Convention Center’s Exhibit Hall and will begin on Oct. 11 in the late afternoon and will be open to the public through the morning of Oct. 16. Exhibitors include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Space Telescope Science Institute, Yerkes Observatory, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Adler Planetarium and UW–Madison. Special exhibits include full-scale models and prototypes of spacecraft, including the Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner planetary probes. A meteorite from Mars will also be on display.

The exhibition, said Limaye, offers an excellent educational opportunity for schools across the state. In conjunction with the exhibition, lectures on current topics in space exploration will be conducted for school-age children at the Monona Terrace Lecture Hall. On average, there will be three public lectures a day, said Limaye. Topics for lectures and teacher workshops include meteorite impacts, introduction to hands-on astronomy, exploring Mars and the Galileo mission to Jupiter.

Another public event to be held in concert with the meeting is a star party to be hosted at the by the Madison Astronomical Society. The star party will be held at the Monona Terrace Convention Center’s Evjue Garden on Thursday evening, Oct. 15.

A full program for the meeting and information for the public and educators can be found by visiting http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/dps98/

The meeting, exhibition and public lectures are being sponsored by the Evjue Foundation of Madison, Kalmbach Publishing Co., Wisconsin Education Association Council, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Sky Publishing Co., Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co.