FIRST REPORT FROM POLAR GATEWAYS ARCTIC CIRCLE SUNRISE 2008 CONFERENCE

Jan. 23-29, 2008, Barrow, Alaska
From John Cooper, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

About thirty hardy polar explorers and fifty remote participants contributed science presentations and educational activities during this circumpolar conference hosted at the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium in celebration of polar and icy world science of the solar system for the International Polar and Heliophysical Years 2007-2009. Remote contributions came via video conference or teleconference from Sweden, Norway, Russia, Canada, Antarctica, and the United States, spanning up to thirteen time zones (Alaska to Russia) at various times during the conference. U.S. remote contributions came from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, University of California at Berkeley, University of Arizona, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Science presentations spanned the solar system from the polar Sun and heliospheric environment to Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Kuiper Belt, and the solar wind termination shock now crossed by both Voyager spacecraft. The LADAR-equipped robotic ice rover of Goddard's NASA Mike (Michael Comberiate) was field tested on Barrow off-shore sea ice during the conference as a potential model for mobile robotic exploration of icy moons such as Europa. The Barrow participants experienced the look and feel of icy worlds like Europa by going "on the ice" during snowmobile expeditions to the near-shore sea ice environment and later to Point Barrow, closest geographic point in the U.S. to the North Pole. Extensive educational outreach activities were conducted with the local Barrow and Alaska North Slope communities and through the NASA Digital Learning Network live from the "top of the world" at Barrow.

An initial set of photos, including local sunrise on Jan. 23, is now on-line from the conference at:

http://www.arcticscience.org/gallery2/main.php

and further links to conference materials including presentation slides and audio/video recordings will be posted in the near future from the conference home page at

http://polargateways2008.org/

The first group of educational podcasts from Goddard's Sun-Earth Day team at Barrow can be viewed at:

http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2008/index.php