Clark R. Chapman Institute Scientist Southwest Research Institute, Dept. of Space Studies, Boulder CO cchapman@boulder.swri.edu

B.S. in Astronomy, Harvard University, 1967
M.S. in Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1968
Ph.D. in Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1972.

• Internet Address: cchapman@boulder.swri.edu

• Postal Address: Southwest Research Inst., 1050 Walnut (Suite 426), Boulder CO 80302 USA
• Phone: (303) 546-9670
• Fax: (303) 546-9687

Clark R. Chapman: Brief Biography
Clark R. Chapman's Full C.V.
Clark R. Chapman's Publications
Available Abstracts, Preprints, and Articles
Directions for Scientific Visitors to Rancho Europa

Research In Progress, Papers, Abstracts, and Diagrams

Dr. Clark R. Chapman is an Institute Scientist at the Boulder, Colorado, office of Southwest Research Institute (Dept. of Space Studies of SwRI's Division 15). He is also an Adjunct Professor in the APS Dept. at the University of Colorado (Boulder). Until March 1996, he was Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Until 1999, he also remained as a Consulting Employee for Science Applications International Corporation, which he joined in 1972. In the early 90s, he was the first Editor of Journal of Geophysical Research--Planets. He is a member of the Imaging Team of the Galileo mission to Jupiter, currently still orbiting in the Jupiter system. He is also a member of the MSI/NIS (imaging/spectrometer) Team of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to Eros, which was launched in February 1996, went into orbit around Eros on Valentine's Day, 2000, and successfully landed on the surface of Eros on Feb. 12, 2001. Dr. Chapman is a past Chairman of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society and past President of Commission 15 (Physical Properties of Asteroids and Comets) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). He served two terms on the Council of the Meteoritical Society.

Dr. Chapman received an undergraduate degree in Astronomy from Harvard, Master's Degree in Meteorology from M.I.T., and PhD in Planetary Science from M.I.T. (1972). He is a leading researcher in planetary cratering and in the physical properties of the smaller bodies of the solar system (asteroids, comets, planetary satellites, the planet Mercury). He led the Galileo imaging investigations of Ida (resulting in the discovery of Dactyl, the first known satellite of an asteroid) and of the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter. Dr. Chapman's research group (including Beau Bierhaus, Univ. of Colorado graduate student and Dr. Bill Merline) is studying the Galilean satellites Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, especially secondary/primary cratering of the exceptionally young terrain on Europa. Dr. Chapman has been the Principal Investigator of many NASA and NSF grants and is currently P.I. of research concerning the Late Heavy Bombardment of the Moon (and inner solar system). He has frequently been an advisory consultant for NASA and he chaired NASA's Planetary Astronomy Management Operations Working Group. He was a member of the prestigious COMPLEX committee of the National Research Council (NRC). In 1997/8, he served on the NRC's Task Group on Sample Return from Small Solar System Bodies, which issued its final report in early summer 1998. Asteroid 2409 Chapman bears his name.

Dr. Chapman is author or co-author of innumerable technical papers dealing with practically every planet in the solar system. He was Co-Editor of "Mercury," the definitive book on the planet Mercury published by the University of Arizona Press (1988); he is a member of the science team (with special responsibilities for public outreach) for the Mercury orbiter mission "MESSENGER", which was approved as a future Discovery mission in 1999 and is scheduled for launch in 2004. He is author or co-author of several popular-level books, including "Planets of Rock and Ice" (Scribner's 1983) and "Cosmic Catastrophes" (Plenum Press, 1989) and is currently completing a new book co-authored with David Morrison. He also wrote a so-far-unpublished book manuscript, commissioned by NASA, on Voyager's encounter with Neptune. For nearly two decades, Dr. Chapman was the columnist for The Planetary Report, the publication of The Planetary Society; his column was suspended in late 1999. He has written many articles for such widely read science magazines as Scientific American, Pacific Discovery, Astronomy, New Scientist, Discover, and Sky & Telescope. He is frequently invited to contribute technical commentaries to the News & Views columns of Nature.

During the last decade, Dr. Chapman has been prominent in the newly popular subject (now a significant topic of NASA OSS's strategic plan concerning origins and destiny) of the hazard of comets and asteroids in striking our own planet. He was a member of the original Spacewatch Workshop held in 1981 (Snowmass, Colorado, chaired by the late Gene Shoemaker) and his book "Cosmic Catastrophes" (co-authored with David Morrison) was instrumental in calling attention to the potential hazard. Dr. Chapman chaired the 1991 International Conference on Near-Earth Asteroids. He was also a member of both of the Congressionally-mandated NASA Committees (on Detection and on Interception of Near Earth Objects) and more recently he served as a consultant for NASA's Shoemaker Committee, mandated by Congress following the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crash. Dr. Chapman also served on the Organizing Committee of a United Nations meeting on the impact hazard and subsequent workshops, including the March 2001 workshop on Earth-threatening asteroids and comets (part of the 6th International Space Cooperation Workshop). He is a member of the IAU Working Group on NEOs and a Sustaining Member of the Spaceguard Foundation. Dr. Chapman participated in the Geological Society of America's project on "Prediction in the Earth Sciences: Use and Misuse in Policy Making." He also served as Curator of an exhibit at the University of Colorado Museum, concerning meteorites and asteroids, which ran through October 1999. On May 21, 1998, Dr. Chapman presented invited testimony about the impact hazard before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. He is co-author of a widely-cited 2001 white paper on the impact hazard.

Dr. Chapman has concluded his research on the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter. He designed the S-L 9 observational program of the Galileo spacecraft, used telescopes of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, and wrote some widely-read popular and technical review articles about S-L 9 for Sky & Telescope, Nature, New Scientist and two Cambridge University Press books on the comet crash. Dr. Chapman's thematic article on asteroids, the comet crash, and related topics was published in the 1996 Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook "Science and the Future". Dr. Chapman's other current research activities include searching for asteroid satellites utilizing adaptive optics techniques on large groundbased telescopes (a program led by Dr. Bill Merline); studies of automated scientific decision-making algorithmns for spacecraft; and studying the interrelationships of asteroids, comets, meteoroids, interplanetary dust, and meteorites. His invited review paper for Meteoritics & Planetary Science entitled "S-type Asteroids, Ordinary Chondrites, and Space Weathering: The Evidence from Galileo's Fly-bys of Gaspra and Ida", Nov. 1996, provides a thorough background to NEAR's recent investigations of Eros.

In October 1999 in Padua, Italy, Dr. Chapman received the 1999 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication of Planetary Science (awarded by the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society). He was also elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received his certificate and rosette from AAAS President Stephen Jay Gould at the Feb. 2000 Washington D.C. meeting.

Dr. Chapman has frequently lectured to public groups (e.g. at science museums or in public lecture series) about planetary science. In 1995 he was a featured evening lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History; on Feb. 28th, 2000, Dr. Chapman presented his Sagan Medallist talk on the subject of Europa at the new Hayden Planetarium, one week after the official opening of the reconstructed Rose Center. In early 1998, he lectured on the subject of "oceans" to Jason Project school teachers at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. In spring 1998 he addressed the National Science Teachers Association on the subject of the impact hazard and has since talked on the same subject at Illinois State University, Dartmouth College, and the University of Northern Colorado, among other places. Most recently, he talked with elementary school children in New Orleans.

Dr. Chapman has appeared in local, national, and international radio, TV, and Internet programs; for example, he has been on the Jim Lehrer News Hour (PBS), National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition", the CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, and the "Ann Online" Internet talk show. He was featured in an episode of PBS's "Futurequest," in a sober segment of "Sightings," and in the March 1997 Fox documentary, "Doomsday", as well as on several Discovery Channel documentaries (the latest dealing with the NEAR mission, aired in autumn 2001). Other educational outreach activities included working with WGBH on an often-rebroadcast episode for "Nova" concerning the impact hazard, shown on PBS several times since Oct. 1995, and serving as an on-line expert concerning Europa on the Discovery Channel website in April 1997. During the past several years, Dr. Chapman has also been interviewed by Japanese television, the BBC, the Science Fiction Channel, the National Film Board of Canada, Austrian National Television, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., and several syndicated radio shows. In February 2001, he provided live narration on CNN and CNN International of the images of Eros as NEAR descended toward its historic landing. Dr. Chapman has also been quoted extensively in recent issues of The New York Times, Boston Globe, International Herald-Tribune, The New Yorker, The Baltimore Sun, Science News, Popular Science, Science.com, USA Today, Technology Review, Time, Newsweek, and by various wire services.

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Ida and Dactyl showing effects of "space weathering" (false color)

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