Dear friends, I wanted members of the Utah astronomical community to be aware of this lecture today, and the meeting. Best wishes, Joe Public invited to free lecture about Jupiter's moon By Joe Bauman Deseret News staff writer Members of the public have a chance to glimpse an amazing world of towering volcanoes, shifting landscapes and huge plumes of sulfur material shooting far into space, during a free lecture Friday at the University of Utah. The bizarre world is the distant moon Io, which orbits the planet Jupiter and is the most volcanically active place in the solar system. The Galileo spacecraft has flown past Io several times, delivering stunning close-up photos. The lecture, starting 6 p.m. in Room 101 of the U.'s James Fletcher Building (115 S. 1400 East), is the keynote talk in a regional gathering of the American Physical Society. Dovetailing with the two-day meeting of the Four Corners regional group, a meeting of cosmic ray researchers will draw some of the same scientists. Nagin Cox, a systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is slated to deliver the keynote speech for the Four Corners meeting, "The Galileo Mission to Jupiter: The Daring Return to Io, Moon of Volcanoes and Fire." Cox will discuss the Galileo spacecraft's exploration of Jupiter and its moons. In December 1995, the huge space probe went into orbit around Jupiter. Since then it has delighted scientists and the public with a stream of beautiful and surprising images, plus an immense amount of scientific data about the largest planet in the solar system and its moons. In September 2003, having worked for four times its planned two years of operations, the aging probe is scheduled to plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere and burn up. During the Physical Society meeting, researchers will deliver about 100 lectures to their fellows on astrophysics, gravitation, solid state physics, extremely tiny structures and other subjects. David Kieda, U. physics professor and an organizer of the conference, said about 150 physicists are expected to attend from Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Many of the talks will be by graduate and undergraduate students, he said. During Four Corners sessions, "they tend to show the first results of the research they're doing" in work to earn doctoral degrees, he said. "It's a good opportunity for them to practice." College and high school students may attend the sessions without paying the usual registration fee, he added. "They can come and see what science is all about." Besides the Galileo lecture, the public is invited to two other free events: * Starting 8:30 p.m. Friday, the U.'s Ziggy Peacock will give a physics demonstration at the I.J. & Jeanne Wagner Jewish Community Center, 2 N. Medical Drive. Peacock illustrates physics principles with clever demonstrations, Kieda said. * If weather allows, a star party will be held from 10 p.m. until midnight Friday at the observatory on the Physics Building, just south of the Fletcher Building. Both conference participants and the public are invited. Peacock said the Four Corners group sponsors interesting meetings for its members. Physicists gather from throughout the four states for meetings in different locations. In 1998, the society held its meeting at Brigham Young University, Provo. This year, the First International Workshop on Air Fluorescence will dovetail with the Four Corners group meeting. It is scheduled to run from Sunday through Tuesday in the U.'s Intermountain Network and Scientific Computation Center. Air fluorescence, a glowing that happens when high-energy particles flash through Earth's atmosphere, is essential to cosmic ray research carried out by the U. and other institutions on Dugway Proving Ground. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-MAIL: bau@desnews.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company