I had the opportunity to attend the 40th annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. It’s being held here in Ithaca, NY at Cornell University. Along with some beautiful fall weather, I’ve also enjoyed some fantastic science. The meeting started with the Mars sessions on the first day. I think every single talk about the planet’s surface used HiRISE data! An entire session was devoted to the Martian atmosphere, which was interesting because I’m not as familiar with that. It’s also been great to see what’s going on in the rest of the solar system – I’ve been pretty Mars-oriented since starting with HiRISE, so I’ve loved hearing about things like the lakes on Titan, progress in exoplanet studies, and changes in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

As usual, other blogs are covering the meeting well (Planetary Society and the Martian Chronicles, for example). In addition, the sessions are all being web-streamed live (links to streaming video here; full program here). I think this afternoon’s special sessions are going to be really interesting, so I recommend watching them. I’m especially interested in the mission highlights from the rovers, Phoenix, MESSENGER, Cassini, and Kaguya. We’ve already seen some results from Kaguya and MESSENGER in the individual sessions – exciting stuff!