Note to Editors: All of the scientific sessions are closed to the public but open to the media, except for the June 28 talks at the Millennium Hotel, which are open to all.
Roughly 250 scientists from around the world have converged on Boulder this week to present their latest findings on Jupiter, its satellites and magnetosphere.
Attendees will present the latest results from NASA's Galileo Mission now at Jupiter, the Cassini Mission to Saturn which recently passed by Jupiter, the Hubble Space Telescope and several ground based observatories.
The meeting is sponsored by the University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ at Boulder, the Boulder Office of the Southwest Research Institute, Ball Aerospace, NASA's Office for Space Science and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"It was time to gather all of the scientists involved in taking data from Jupiter, including its magnetosphere and moons, in order to assess our understanding of the Jovian system," said ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder planetary scientist Fran Bagenal. A research associate in ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Bagenal was the chief organizer of the meeting, which runs to June 29, and is an interdisciplinary scientist on the Galileo mission.
A special series of public talks will be held at 7:30 p.m. on June 28 at the Millennium Hotel (formerly the Harvest House) located just south of 28th Street and Arapahoe Avenue behind Safeway. Speakers include JPL Project Scientist Torrence Johnson, who will talk about the mission; ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder space scientist Robert Pappalardo, who will speak on Jupiter's moons; and Southwest Research Institute scientist Carolyn Porco, who will talk on "Jupiter - A Wonderland of Color."
Admission to the public event is $3. Those less than 18 years of age and ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ students with ID's will be admitted free of charge, said Bagenal.
Space scientists from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and China are attending the meeting. "I think there will be some surprises, but we view it more as an opportunity to digest the data from Jupiter in order to better understand our largest planet," said Bagenal.
Twelve LASP scientists are presenting papers at the meeting on topics ranging from Jupiter's aurora to Europa's oceans, said Bagenal, who is also a professor in the astrophysical and planetary sciences department.
LASP, which built the UV spectrometers on both the Galileo and Cassini missions, has been funded by NASA to design an Earth-orbiting telescope in collaboration with Ball Aerospace. Scientists and students will use it to study the intense UV emissions from Jupiter and its moons as well as an immense doughnut-shaped torus of charged particles surrounding Jupiter.
Highlights of the meeting include the origin of Jupiter and it's moons, Jupiter's interior, atmosphere, chemistry, aurora, radiation belts and planets. Of special interest are the planet's four moons, including Io and its active volcanoes, Europa and its oceans and the surface processes of Ganymede and Callisto, said Bagenal.
Specific information on the conference talks and poster presentations can be found on the Web at: .