The 40th Lunar & Planetary Science Conference kicks off in Houston tomorrow. The science news has been full of advance stories about papers that will be presented there over the next five days, with a bunch of them coming from Arizona scientists or using data from Arizona-run missions and instruments - e.g., Phoenix Mars Lander, HiRISE camera, THEMIS. Expect to hear about water and where to look for life on Mars, about methane lakes and dunes on Titan, and more.
I attended a number of these conferences in the early 1980s when they were still held at the Lunar and Planetary Institute's original home in a stately mansion on Galveston Bay. I met the legendary John Young, Gemini-Apollo astronaut and first shuttle pilot, when he was judging the infamous annual chili cook-off held on the tree-shaded grounds of the institute.