Post Monday Meeting

Today's meeting with the students went well. Four of the six students were able to attend. Over about half an hour I reviewed a couple important topics: geodetic coordinates, planetary formation and large scale structure. We also discussed the question I had emailed over the weekend. Clearly, this is a bunch of material for such a short time. Time will tell if it is too much but the idea was to start by saying interesting things about planets. I also handed out DVDs so students can install my Planetary Exploration Program on their home computer.
Although my email with questions didn't get any responses, the students mostly knew the answers. They could itemize the basic types of rocks, geological features and processes and some idea of latitude and longitude. It was a good sign.

Following this, I'll post some more on geodetic coordinates and planetary structure. This will be useful to the students that couldn't attend today's meeting.
Next week we'll probably do a hands-on session. I installed my Planetary Exploration Program on three more machines so there will be a computer. By next Monday students likely will have the software running at home so it will be a good time to give them a more in-depth introduction.