Title: Beauty and Grandeur in Planetary Science
Abstract:In 1859, Darwin concluded his book, Origin of the Species, on the transcendent note that "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." Let's allow ourselves a moment to reflect upon the beauty and grandeur of the Solar System and the extraordinary landscapes and phenomena of Nature that have emerged from the half century during which planetary science was defined and developed by the scientists, faculty, and students of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Kuiper himself set a visionary tone by finding beauty in every aspect of planetary science from lunar and Martian vistas to the structure of spectral bands, although he rarely expressed it openly. For five decades, the students and scientists at LPL have opened new vistas in the Solar System on scales ranging from nanometers to astronomical units, from the deep interiors of the planets to the magnetic fields surrounding them, and everything in between. We are the uniquely privileged generation that Sagan defined: that which has seen planets transformed from points of light in the sky to places that we can view, visit, and understand. The exciting and transformative next five decades will see extraordinary new and unique vistas revealed in extrasolar planetary systems, and LPL will be there in its traditional leadership role.