Glaciers and volcanoes on Mars, earthquakes on Venus, the effects of past asteroid impacts on the Earth – these are just a few of the many fascinating topics that will be covered at the 33rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, March 11–15 at the South Shore Harbour Resort & Conference Center in League City, Texas.

Media are invited to attend all sessions and can register for the conference, at no charge, via the Web at:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/htbin/meetings/lpsc2002.elec.regfrm.pl

Under “registration status” select “Working Press $0.00.” News media with additional questions, or those who wish to schedule interviews with participants, should contact Pam Thompson at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Thompson can be reached by phone at 281/486-2175 or by e-mail at thompson@lpi.usra.edu.

A preliminary program and abstracts are available on the Web at:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2002/pdf/program.pdf

On Tuesday afternoon, preliminary results from the current Mars Odyssey mission will be discussed. A Wednesday afternoon session will focus on the recent Deep Space One flyby of comet Borrelly, which provided the highest resolution data yet obtained of a cometary nucleus. Additional results from the NEAR-Shoemaker mission to the asteroid Eros also will be presented Wednesday afternoon. Thursday afternoon features new results on Martian meteorites, while Friday morning highlights the continuing debate on evidence for life in Martian meteorite ALH84001.

The 2002 conference is sponsored by NASA, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the NASA Johnson Space Center. Meeting chairs are Carl B. Agee of JSC and David C. Black of LPI.

Additional information about conference events can be found on the Web at:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2002/lpsc2002.3rd.html

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