As a joint project with the Geosciences department, the space center is establishing a laboratory for the measurement of elements and isotopes in extraterrestrial and terrestrial materials.  The main instrument for the facility, called an an inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometer, is undergoing its final stages of testing at the manufacturer’s facility at Wrexham in the UK.  To observe the process, and familiarize himself with the equipment and the people who constructed it, space center laboratory manager Walter Graupner recently spent two weeks at the factory.  He is shown in the image to the left with Glyn Peters, the engineer at Nu Instruments who is conducting the tests and who will probably install the spectrometer in the space center at Arkansas.

The 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference that was held in Houston the second week in March was my first time to attend this annual conference.  I was looking forward to attending this annual meeting as a spectator and then I learned that rather than presenting a poster paper as I had expected, I would be making an oral presentation on the abstract I had submitted.  This caused a bit of nervousness not because I would be speaking to a group of people, but I would be speaking to a group of people very knowledgeable in the field of asteroids (some of whom I had cited).  Since my talk was scheduled to be the first in the Tuesday afternoon session, as I attended sessions the first day and a half of the conference I was thinking about how my talk would go.  My nervousness grew as the time approached, but not nearly as much as I had expected it would.  I was able to finish within the time allotment, which I had noticed that a number of the speakers I had heard were not able to do.  My talk received good comments about my presentation from several people.  My nervousness had quickly changed to exhilaration, which fired my desire to return next year and speak again!

Kathy Gietzen
SPAC Graduate Student

 Solicited Research Programs (In order of Proposal due dates) 

Julia Kennefick, a member of the space center and a faculty member in the department of Physics, recently hosted two activities for elementary and middle school students as part of University Days 2007.

The first project involved making a thousand-yard model of the solar system to demonstrate scale.  The students used different common objects (pinheads, peanuts, and balls of various sizes) to create a small scale model.  The other activity involved using dry ice, dirt, corn starch, and other materials to simulate the composition of a comet.  The materials were mixed in a trash bag until the components eventually stuck together to make a “comet.”

The parents and teachers that accompanied the students enjoyed these experiments a great deal, and we would like to thank Dr. Kennefick for such successful and fun outreach initiatives!

Admission is free and open to the public.
A reception will follow.

Dr. John Dixon
UArk Geosciences Department
“Geology in Frozen Places”
April 9th - 7:00 pm
Giffels Auditorium - Old Main

Amber Straughn, a former under-graduate student in the space center and the department of Physics, recently won the Chambliss medal at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) annual meeting in Seattle for a poster she presented.  Amber is a NASA Jenkins Predoctoral Fellow and a graduate student at Arizona State University.