This one day symposium will address the many issues that remain unsolved in the investigation of chondrules, their origin, and their significance in Solar System formation.

Through a day of invited talks and discussion, we will explore recent progress on constraining the formation mechanism(s), environments, and the timing of chondrule formation and potentially their accretion into parent bodies. We will discuss the implications of chondrule formation for the larger issue of Solar System formation and identify key outstanding issues in the above areas. Finally, we will suggest scientific methods that should eventually enable us to better constrain these issues and discuss the developments that may be necessary in order to reach this goal. The fruition of the symposium will be published in a special edition of Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

When: Saturday, July 31, 2010, 9:00am - 6:00pm
Where: Park Central Hotel in upper midtown Manhattan, City of New York.
Format: Eight invited talks of 30 minutes, each followed by a 20 minutes discussion.
Sponsor: Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI).
Convenors: Harold C. Connolly Jr., Brigitte Zanda, and Roger H. Hewins.

This symposium directly follows the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, July 26-30.
A users' group meeting for the Pencil code will be held July 26-30 2010, at the American Museum of Natural History. It will include the developers and users of the Pencil Code, a parallelized magnetohydrodyanic simulation code. Discussion will include astrophysics, algorithms and software engineering.
The Pencil Code is used to simulate stars, disks, the ISM, and solar physics. For registration and local matters, email Jason Maron (email) 212-496-3442. The leader of the Pencil collaboration is Axel Brandenburg (email).