Weekly Recap

The first week of February proved to be quite a busy week for Io news, so here is a quick weekend recap for those who are just joining us:

• Abstracts for next month's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference were released on Friday. I summarized a few of the abstracts for some of the posters that will be presented at the conference, including a New Frontiers concept study, a global geologic map, and a regional map covering Shamshu and Hi'iaka.
• I discussed some of the common features seen at Io's mountains such as their degradation styles (like landslides and SO2 sapping) and relationships with volcanism.
• I processed a few more maps from individual Galileo orbits.
• I played around with the latest version of Google Earth and watched the Super Bowl (greatest game ever...until the last 10 seconds).

So what do I got cooked up for this week? Well, I still have at least six more LPSC abstracts to discuss here on the blog. The Outer Planet Flagship Mission Decision Meeting will take place on Thursday, February 12. If the downselection is published this week, certainly I will post my reaction to it.