President Bernie Zelazny called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM in 309 Lawrence Hall on the Sul Ross Campus.  There were 14 people present.
       John bell presented a program on the ups and downs in our thinking and speculations on the possibility of life on Mars (see below).
        The business meeting took place after John's presentation.  The minutes were accepted as printed in the October Newsletter.
       Betty Grimm submitted the following treasurer's report:

       End of minutes.

        John began with one of his now famous quizzes.  For example, how many of us knew that Mars is only about half the size of the earth in diameter, rotates on its axis in about 25 hours, or will soon (in 2003) be closer to the earth than it has been in 1,000 years?
        During the 1800s, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed dark lines on Mars, which he called canali.  These channels, or canals, caught the fancy of Camille Flammarion, in France, who wrote a very influential book on Mars.  When the American amateur astronomer Percival Lowell read Flammarion's book, he devoted the rest of his life and much of his considerable wealth to the study of Mars.  Lowell sent people to the American west to find a suitable place for a major observatory, in the first systematic attempt to locate an observatory where the seeing was good.
        Lowell built his observatory at Flagstaff, AZ, at an elevation of about 7,000 feet.  He installed a 26" refractor, one of the largest telescopes in the world at the time, and still in operation.  Lowell drew highly detailed maps of Martian canals, which he thought were built by intelligent beings to bring water from the polar regions to the parched areas of a dying planet.  Unfortunately, other people could not agree on the locations of Lowell's canals.  Nevertheless, his writings on Mars captured the imagination of many other people, especially other writers.  Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, wrote several science fiction novels through the 1930s.
        The British writer, H. G Wells, wrote the War of the Worlds in 1898.  In this science-fiction novel, the Martians landed near London, laid waste to the countryside, only to be felled by earthly microbes.  Orson Welles - no relation - adapted Wells's story to a radio play on the Mercury Theater on Halloween evening, 1938.  In the adaptation, the Martians landed near Grover's Mill, NJ, not far from New York City.  The radio play unfolded opposite Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on another network.  When an unpopular singer came on Bergen's show, many listeners switched to Orson's production.  Some of these listeners panicked, having missed the introduction, thinking the show was a news report of a real Martian invasion.  Orson Welles went on to a distinguished Hollywood career as actor and producer, renowned for his production of Citizen Kane.
        Robert Goddard (1832-1945) was an American physicist who dedicated his life to developing rockets for space travel.  During the late 1920s, he launched the first successful liquid-fuel rockets.  Eventually, his work led to our present successes in rocketry.  Carl Sagan (1934-96) became one of the leading supporters of the search for extraterrestrial life, through his writing and his Cosmos series on TV.
        Our search for extraterrestrial life got a big boost with the discovery of bacteria-like structures in a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica.  However, the interpretation of these structures has been questioned (but see the news item, below).
        John's many figures and illustrations added greatly to his presentation.

        (Edited from NASA, Dec. 12, 2000).  A research team has found compelling evidence of life in a Martian meteorite previously found to contain bacteria-like structures.  Tiny magnetite crystals -  so called magnetofossils - embedded in the meteorite were confirmed to be the type produced only by a biological process unique to magnetotactic bacteria.  These bacteria make use of their magnetic crystals rather like compasses in orienting themselves with respect to a magnetic field. 
       The researchers found the magnetite crystals in carbonates in the Martian meteorite found in Antarctica in 1984.  Earlier research has confirmed that the carbonates formed on Mars, showing that the magnetite crystals also were formed on Mars.
       Magnetite crystals produced by magnetotactic bacteria are chemically pure and have a distinctive size and shape. These crystals are so far known to be produced only through biological processes by organisms.
       The researchers discovered that about one-fourth of the magnetites in the meteorite are identical to the magnetites produced by a strain of magnetotactic bacteria called MV-1, which have been isolated and studied extensively.  There is currently no known chemical means of producing these magnetite crystals with their unique forms.  The significance to astrobiology and geobiology is that many scientists have been searching for 'biomarkers' for life, that is, chemical, indications that life was present, either in extreme habitats or in ancient materials on Earth and, of course, now in extraterrestrial materials.
        Recently published research shows evidence of widespread sediment layers on Mars, possibly indicating the former presence of many lakes.  Because these lakes may have provided a habitat for magnetotactic bacteria, this finding further supports the possibility that such bacteria may have existed on Mars.

        (Edited from NASA, December 18, 2000).  Even among enthusiastic sky watchers, the prospect of the annual Ursid meteor shower rarely provokes more than mild interest. Normally, the shower's feeble maximum on Dec. 22nd produces no more than a few meteors per hour.  But this year could be different.  The earth is now heading directly for a dusty debris stream shed by periodic comet Tuttle, the parent of the Ursids.  Meteor rates could soar to more than 100 per hour next Thursday night and Friday morning when Earth plows through the stream of meteoroids.  The comet follows a 13.5-year elliptical orbit that stretches from just inside Earth's orbit to a point between Jupiter and Saturn.

        A partial eclipse of the sun will begin about 9:42 AM in Alpine, reach a maximum of about 20% coverage about 10:44 AM, and will end about 11:53 AM.  In the northern US, the eclipse will reach about 50%.  DO NOT try to view the eclipse through binoculars or through a scope without a proper official solar filter!!!  You can safely view the eclipse by projecting an image of the sun through binoculars on a white surface, or through a pinhole.

If we have not yet received your dues, then please use the convenient envelope addressed to our treasurer that is included with this copy of your Newsletter.

Betty Lou Grimm, Treasurer
Big Bend Astronomical Society, Inc
1001 N 2nd Street, Apt F-22
Alpine, TX 79830