Off to France! DPS-EPSC 2011 (a big planetary meeting)

I'm leaving shortly for Nantes, France to attend the 2011 joint meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society and the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC). You may be saying, wait, why is the American Astronomical Society having a meeting in France? The DPS has quite an international membership, so about one every four years, they hold their annual meeting outside the USA. It just happens that the meeting where I get flown out to accept a prize from the DPS is the one in Europe! Lucky me!

So I'll be attending the whole week, but I haven't figured out which talks I'm going to go to yet. The meeting's program is only displayed through a database-driven interface that is really awesome if you're looking for a specific author or a specific topic, but it's awful if, like me, you plan to jump from room to room to listen to talks about different parts of the solar system. I was hoping to find just a list of talk titles online but the search was fruitless. To make a long story short, after about a hundred mouse-clicks I produced this "personal programme" (PDF) containing nearly every talk at the conference listed in order of the time that they are given. I know for certain that not quite every session is included -- I think there are four or so missing, none of the "big-room" ones though -- so feel free to download it, but don't rely on it.

Here also is a useful block program (PDF) showing the titles of each session, and here is a schedule of all the press briefings. NOTE THAT THE PRESS BRIEFINGS WILL BE WEBCAST LIVE, so you can watch.

I don't know yet how regularly I'll be able to get online, whether I'll be able to Tweet very much or just post occasional blog entries. But I'll be doing my best to let you know the latest news in planetary science from Nantes on October 3-7!