Sixth International Conference on Mars
July 20–25, 2003, Pasadena, California
The Sixth International Conference on Mars will be held at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), July 20–25, 2003. At that time a flotilla of new missions either will be sending new data back from Mars or will be on their way to Mars. The first such conference was held in 1973 as data were being returned from Mariner 9. Conferences were convened in 1979 and 1981 as data were returned from the Viking missions. The fourth conference, in 1989, reviewed ten years of analysis of the Viking data and resulted in the publication of the classic 1498-page volume entitled Mars. The fifth conference was held in 1999 as Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor data became widely available.
This conference will provide an opportunity to review and debate some of the key questions and controversies that have matured during the flood of MGS and Odyssey data. Abstracts should address such key topics as the following (listed in no particular order):
- role of early water — oceans and/or aquifers
- evidence for very recent liquid water
- current extent/location of water
- annual repeatability of atmosphere
- basis for choice of MER landing sites
- latest volcanism
- polar cap processes
- places where extremeophiles could survive on Mars
- the “andesite” question
- nature and origin of stratified deposits
- paleoclimate — surface signatures and modeling
- enigmatic landforms
- strategies for future Mars exploration
- dust “cycle”
- carbon dioxide cycle
- water cycle(s) and chronology
- crustal magnetic fields
More information: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/sixthmars2003/sixthmars2003.1st.html
