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National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas 77058 AC 713 483-5111

Rh Pam Alloway Release No.: 90-021

Note to Science Editors: NASA Johnson Space Center Hosts 21st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference March 12-16, 1990.

Scientists from around the world will converge on Houston's Johnson Space Center March 12-16 to discuss the latest research on lunar and planetary science, including preliminary findings from the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) retrieved on STS-32 in January.

About 750 scientists are expected to attend the 21st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference which will feature sessions on Mars, the Voyager 2 mission, LDEF, and various lunar topics.

There will be two public sessions: a discussion March 12 of President Bush's Moon/Mars exploration initiative featuring JSC Director Aaron Cohen; and a special Voyager 2 session March 14 featuring the California Institute of Technology's Andrew Ingersoll. The Voyager 2 spacecraft in August 1989 sent back data and images of Neptune. Both programs will begin at 8 p.m. in Teague auditorium in Bldg. 2 and are free of charge.

Concurrent sessions are scheduled each day at 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. On the conference's final day - March 16 - sessions are scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. The sessions will take place in the Gilruth Center at JSC.

Scientists and scholars will present about 375 papers during the conference. Technical sessions will cover such subjects as: a Venus overview prior to Magellan; lunar meteorites, geology and resource utilization; cosmic rays; comets and orbital dust collection; the outer solar system; Martian geophysical and tectonic evolution, volcanic evolution, climate histories and craters; solar nebula and planetary origins; heavy metal meteorites; Triton and Phobos; and planetary geological processes.