Vincent Chevrier, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Space Center, published a paper in the July 5 issue of Nature with the title, “Early geochemical environment of Mars as determined from thermodynamics of phyllosilicates” with  Francois Poulet and Jean-Pierre Bibring as co-authors.

The paper uses thermodynamic arguments to show the clay on Mars formed in a wet environment in the absence of CO2, a new concept for early Mars. The paper was highlighted  in a News & Views piece by David Catling of the University of Bristol.

Kate Coleman, a Space Center graduate student, and John Dixon, a member of the Space Center and a faculty member in the department of Geosciences, recently returned from the 2nd International Workshop: Exploring Mars and its Earth Analogues conference in Trento, Italy.  It was hosted by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA).  Kate presented a poster titled, “Experimental approach to understanding the origin of gullies on Mars” with John Dixon, Derek Sears, Larry Roe and Lisa Billingsley as co-authors.

The poster focused on the methodology they are devising, for creating a chamber to perform experiments at martian temperature, pressure and atmosphere, and discussions of minerals suspected being on the martian surface through which fluids appear to be creating gullies.

Rick Ulrich, the deputy director of the Space Center and a faculty member in the department of Chemical Engin-eering, gave a presentation to the Arkansas Gifted & Talented Summer Program titled, “Energy and Climate; What Today’s Teenager Has to Look Forward To.”

The program was established in 2003 to acknowledge the best and brightest youth throughout Arkansas and surrounding states. 

The Space Center recently concluded two astronomy workshops for teachers on the UArk campus.  The “WebScopes in the Classroom” workshop  was held June 14-16, under the direction of Claud Lacy, a member of the Space Center and a faculty member in the department of Physics.  The “STORI” workshop took place June 18-22, under the direction of Larry Lebofsky, of the University of Arizona, and Nancy Lebofsky.  The Space Center would like to thank all of the teachers that participated this year!  The teachers are listed below.

NASA - Roses 2007
Solicited Research Programs (In Order of Proposal Due Dates)
 

Seminars will be held at 3:00 pm in the Keck Lab (room 109) of the Old Museum Building.

Week 9 - July 17
Making an effective oral presentation
Dr. Claud Lacy

Week 10 - July 26
Final presentations (oral) by REU students
1:30 pm - MUSE 201 (Main floor)