Work in public outreach, lab techniques and instrument design, systems engineering, and the study of gas giants will be honored in October when the American Astronomical Society’s division for planetary sciences hands out four awards during its 38th annual meeting, held this year in Pasadena, California.
The Carl Sagan Medal will go to David Grinspoon, curator of astrobiology in the space sciences department at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, “for his energetic and successful efforts to get the general public thinking about planets, and about our place in the solar system and wider universe.” The citation also describes his two popular books, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life (HarperCollins, 2003) and Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet (Perseus Books, 1998), as “detailed and thought-provoking treatments of serious subjects that describe scientific investigation in human and enticing terms.”
Dale...
