FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
Third Workshop on
"Titan Chemistry ; Observations, Experiments, Computations, Modeling"
Caribe Hilton Hotel
San Juan PR Feb 26-28, 2009
http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/Bil301/Titan2009.html
Announcing the third in a series of workshops on the chemistry of
Titan's atmosphere, co-organized in recent years by Ralf Kaiser, Alex
Mebel, Ian Sims and Arthur Suits. The meeting will include a mix of
observation, experiment, theory and modeling, and will include both
neutral and ion chemistry. We are planning the workshop to begin with
registration and a reception in the evening on Wednesday February 25,
with Gordon conference style sessions beginning the next morning and
continuing through mid-day on Saturday the 28th.
Saturn’s moon Titan is the only solar system body besides Earth and
Venus with a thick atmosphere and is widely considered as a natural
laboratory on the planetary scale to understand the prebiotic chemistry
on proto-Earth. The Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan has opened a new
chapter in Solar System exploration and extraterrestrial atmospheric
chemistry. On January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe successfully
descended through the atmosphere of Titan and safely landed on its
surface. An extraordinary new world has been unveiled. The scientific
data obtained by the Huygens experiments and by the Cassini Orbiter -
currently being archived and analyzed – are far from being understood.
This workshop is part of the NSF-Collaborative Research in Chemistry
(CRC) Network "Chemistry of Unsaturated Hydrocarbons in Titan's
Atmosphere” and the third in a series of annual meetings aimed to
better understand the hydrocarbon chemistry taking place in the
atmosphere and on the surface of Titan. It brings together atmospheric
modelers, astronomical observers, mission specialists, planetary
scientists, physical chemists (dynamics, kinetics, photochemistry),
theoreticians (electronic structure, dynamics calculations),
astrobiologists, and organic chemists. By focusing on the interplay
between observational & mission data, modeling, and fundamental
investigations of the underlying chemical reactions and photochemical
processes, we also seek emerging generalized concepts on the chemical
processing of hydrocarbon-rich atmospheres of planets and their moons
in the Solar System. By exploring the current boundaries of planetary
science and chemical knowledge, we can more effectively design new
laboratory experiments under well-defined conditions (and recommend
promising directions for further observational searches) and upcoming
Solar System missions to resolve hitherto unanswered aspects of
molecular synthesis in our Solar System.
The workshop will feature invited (35 min + 10 min discussion) as well
as contributed talks (20 min + 5 min discussion) as well as several
keynote lectures, and is limited to 60 participants. Visits are planned
to the Arecibo radio observatory as well as El Yunque National Forest.
Further details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Confirmed Speakers:
S. Atreya - Univ. Mich.
J. M. Bowman - Emory Univ.
T. E. Cravens - Univ. Kansas
A. Coustenis - Observtoire Meudon
R. Kaiser - Univ. Hawaii
R. Lorenz - Johns Hopkins
D. Schroeder - IOCB Prague
I. Sims - Univ. Rennes
Mark Smith - Univ. Arizona
A. Suits - Wayne State Univ.
M. Tolbert - Univ. Colorado
V. Vuitton - Grenoble
For further information contact Arthur Suits, [log in to unmask]
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