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Activity Report December 2017 the CARL SAGAN CENTER for RESEARCH Dr Activity Report December 2017 THE CARL SAGAN CENTER FOR RESEARCH Dr. Nathalie A. Cabrol, Director 2 Peer-Reviewed Publications 1. Barge, L. M., F. C. Krause, J.-P. Jones, K. Billings, and P. Sobron, Geo-Electrodes and Fuel Cells for Simulating Hydrothermal Vent Environments, Astrobiology (submitted). 2. Cabrol, N.A. The coevolution of life & environment on Mars: An ecosystem perspective on the robotic exploration of biosignatures, Astrobiology, 18 (1), January 2018 (in press). The article will be on Open Access soon. 3. Cabrol, N.A. Introduction to From Habitability to Life on Mars, In: From Habitability to Life on Mars, Cabrol, N.A., and E. A. Grin, eds., Elsevier, in press. 4. Cabrol, N.A., E. A. Grin, P. Zippi, N. Noffke, and D. Winter, Evolution of Altiplanic Lake Habitats and Biosignatures at the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition, In: From Habitability to Life on Mars, Cabrol, N.A., and E. A. Grin, eds., Elsevier, in press. 5. Etcheverria, A., et al., (including Cabrol, N.A.). Discrepancies in microbial and limnological response to climate change of close-related Andean oligotrophic lakes triggered by watershed characteristics. Geobiology, 2017 (in press). 6. Hendler NP, Pinilla P, Pascucci I, Pohl A, Mulders G, et al., including Hollenbach D (2017) A likely planet-induced gap in the disk around T Cha. Accepted to MNRAS letters. 7. Iuvan, I. G., Lendl, M., Cubillos, P. E., Tregloan-Reed, J., Lammer, H., Guenther, E. W., and Hanslmeier, A. Pytranspot – A tool for multiband light curve modeling of planetary transits and stellar spots. A&A, in press: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017arXiv171011209J 8. Lund MN, Silva Aguirre V, Davies GR, Chaplin WJ, Christensen-Dalsgaard J, et al., including Huber D (2017) Erratum: “Standing on the Shoulders of Dwarfs: The Kepler Asteroseismic LEGACY Sample. I. Oscillation Mode Parameters”. Astrophys. J 859, article id.110, 7pp. 9. Sobron, P., A. Wang, D. Mayer, J. Bentz, F. Kong, M. Zheng, DLT Saline Playa in a Hyperarid Region of Tibet Plateau-III: Correlated multi-scale surface mineralogy and geochemistry survey, Astrobiology (submitted). 10. Race MS (2017). Something New: Astrobiology in the Real World, Astrobiology, 17 (11), 1067-1068. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ast.2017.1759 11. Siebenmorgen R, Voshchinnikov NV, Bagnulo S, Cox NLJ, Cami J, and Peest C (2017) Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey II. UV/optical study of cloud-to-cloud variations of dust in the diffuse ISM. Accepted to Astron. Astrophys. 3 12. Tregloan-Reed, J., J. Southworth, L. Mancini, P. Mollière, S. Ciceri, I. Bruni, D. Ricci, C. Ayala-Loera, T. Henning, Possible detection of a bimodal cloud distribution in the atmosphere of HAT-P-32Ab from multi-band photometry, MNRAS, in Press. 13. Vijayarangan, S., D. Kohanbash, G. Foil, D. Thompson, A. Wang, K. Zacny, N. Cabrol, and D. Wettergreen, Robotic subsurface exploration and science with long duration autonomy, 2017, (in press). 14. White TR, Pope BJS, Antoci V, Pápics PI, Aerts C, et al., including Huber D (2017) Beyond the Kepler/K2 bright limit: variability in the seven brightest members of the Pleiades. MNRAS 471, 2882-2901. Conferences: Abstracts and Proceedings 1. Ballard, L (2017), Postcards from the Outer Planets, dot Astronomy 9, 11/17/17, Cape Town, South Africa, http://dotastronomy9.saao.ac.za/program/ 2. Coughlin, J.L. “The Final Kepler Planet Candidate Catalog”. Bay Area Exoplanet Meeting #23. Dec. 1, 2017. 3. Sobron, P. Subsurface Mineral Exploration Using LIBS, Invited talk, November 2, 2017, LIBS in Geosciences conference, McGill University, Montreal, Canada 4. Sobron, P. Advanced Planetary Sensing - Technology Opportunities for Mine and Mineral Industries, Invited talk, November 29, 2017, APGO Networking Event, Sudbury, Canada. https://www.apgo.net/uploaded/files/events/apgo-networking-event- sudbury-2017.pdf 5. Tebes, C.,L., Escudero, A. Henriques, G. Chong, A. Menzies, J. Gerding, K. Warren- Rhodes, N. Cabrol, and C. Demergasso, Biosignature detection in microhabitats of Salar de Pajonales, Northern Chile. Astrobiology Conference, Coyhaique, Chile. Technical Reports & Data Releases Smith, J., R. Morris, and the TESS Team: completed and released code for critical TESS commissioning tools to measure the in-flight Focal Plane Geometry (FPG) and Pixel Response Function (PRF). Full-scale system test kicked off to verify and validate the code against realistic simulated commissioning data. TESS Team: completed project-wide milestone test End-to-End 6 (ETE-6) that processed a full sector (~28 days) of simulated data for the entire TESS focal plane through the full pipeline, including planet search and validation. 4 Invitation to Speak (Professional) Beyer, R.A. (Nov 13). Planetary Surface Reconstruction with the NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’s (KAIST’s) Department of Aerospace Engineering, in Daejeon, South Korea. Professor Han-Lim Choi had visited NASA Ames about a year ago with his students, and wanted to bring me and my software developers to KAIST to continue to help them in their work on lunar stereo and for me to give a symposium at the department. It was attended by many faculty and staff. Beyer, R.A. (Nov 15). NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the instruments that enable our exploration of the Moon, Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s (KARI’s) 8th Lunar Exploration Symposium, Jeju Island, South Korea. As part of my visit with Han-Lim Choi at KAIST, he also arranged for me to be invited to this symposium to talk about the instruments on NASA’s LRO, on which I was a Participating Scientist on LROC. Gorti U (2017) Spectral diagnostics of gas in protoplanetary disks. NASA JPL Colloquium, Nov. 13, 2017. Marchis, F. The Search for Exopanet at SETI Institute, 130 anniversaire de la SAF, College de France, Paris, Nov 17 2017-12-02. Marchis. F. Debate on the search for ETs, Close encounter of the Third Kind at the Grand Action, Paris , November 15 2017 Marcu O (11/18) Lost in translation: How traumatic events filter what we see and hear, Berkeley, CA, Workshop on Epigenetics and Behavior. Race MS and Green BP. “Astrobiology and Exploration: Science, Ethics and Human Future” (76 students), OLLI Adult Education program, Co-teaching fall quarter course at Santa Clara University, 6 sessions. Showalter MR, Ballard L, French RS, Gordon MK, and Tiscareno MS (Nov 15) submitted an abstract to the Planetary Science Informatics and Data Analytics conference will be held at Washington University in St. Louis next April https://psida.rsl.wustl.edu. The title is Developments in Geometric Metadata and Tools at the PDS Ring-Moon Systems Node. Sobron, P. Subsurface Mineral Exploration Using LIBS, Invited talk, November 2, 2017, LIBS in Geosciences conference, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Sobron, P. Advanced Planetary Sensing - Technology Opportunities for Mine and Mineral Industries, Invited talk, November 29, 2017, APGO Networking Event, Sudbury, Canada Highlights/ Significant Events and Activities 5 Backman D., and E. West presented the 2017 Evaluation Update Report at the NASA Science Activation Annual Meeting, Leesburg, VA. Bishop JL (11/27). Invited to join Science Study Team for the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) for scientific planning of Mars Sample Return (MSR). Busch MW (11/16): On November 16; the NSF announced that it will continue science- focused operations at Arecibo Observatory, as well as covering several repair costs for hurricane damage. NSF plans to reduce its share of observatory funding over the next few years, and encourages interested parties to present options for other funding. Radar observations at Arecibo will continue to be funded by NASA, but will not resume until the current Puerto-Rico-wide fuel shortage is resolved: https://www.nature.com/news/arecibo-telescope-wins-reprieve-from-us-government- 1.22994 Cabrol, N.A. The article in press The Coevolution of Life & Environment on Mars: An Ecosystem Perspective on the Robotic Exploration of Biosignatures, will have the cover of Astrobiology in the first volume of January 2018 - Volume 18(1). The article will be also on Open Access in December 2017. Coughlin JL. K2 C14 data were successfully delivered to the archives, and C15 data collection just ended, with the raw data now on the ground and processing starting. C16 is on-track to start in ~week, and C17---C19 target management is in prep. Coughlin JL . A NASA Table Top Review was held on Thurs. Dec. 30 where we presented a plan to reprocess all K2 campaigns uniformly from Jan. 2018 -- June 2019 as part of K2 closeout. The initial reaction by the panel was quite positive and it appears very likely this will be our plan going forward. Race MS. Announcement of upcoming launch of new Commentary Column in Astrobiology journal: “Astrobiology in the Real World”. Showalter MS (starting November 6) is leading the FrontierWorlds.seti.org website soliciting public input for the nickname NASA will use for MU69, the KBO target of New Horizons on January 1, 2019. The naming campaign has been was widely covered in the media. Nedervold E. did the site programming and Hood E. handled most of the suggested nominations. At this time, the website has been visited 130,000 times, including visitors from 118 nations. Honors and Awards Race MS (October). Appointed Sr. Scientific Editor, Astrobiology Journal, (Originator and Overall Editor responsible for new monthly Commentary column on Astrobiology, Policy and Societal issues). Pamela Harman, Acting Director 6 CENTER FOR EDUCATION Pamela Harman, Acting Director • Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors: Coral Clark and Pamela Harman led a group of AAAs, a school district liaison, and a school district media staff, through training, meetings, and tours at NASA AFRC Building 703 and facilitated one overnight flight on SOFIA. • NASA Science Activation Annual Meeting, Leesburg, VA: Pamela Harman presented the 2017 Evaluation Update Report CENTER FOR OUTREACH Rebecca McDonald, Director 7 CENTER FOR OUTREACH Rebecca McDonald, Director Popular Publications (print and digital) Shostak, Seth, 06-Nov-2017 “Here’s What E.T.
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