The 41st annual meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences takes place October 4-9 in Fajardo Puerto Rico. The DPS is a division of the American Astronomical Society. About 700 scientists and students have congregated here in Fajardo to present the latest results from their research on the solar system, ranging from Mercury to the outer solar system and extrasolar planets. Tomorrow we have sessions on the icy satellites of the giant planets, exoplanets, and first results from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Also on Monday we have an open forum meeting (town hall style, without the Hitler references, though) on the decadal surveys. These surveys, conducted by the National Research Council at the request of NASA, identify the leading scientific questions in the various fields of interest to NASA and become useful roadmaps in the following decade for prioritizing missions and exploration programs.

It looks like it will be a very full week: in addition to being an author on 5 papers here, I’ll be chairing a session, serving on two committees that are meeting here, including DPS’s governing committee, as well as meetings to discuss various scientific collaborations.