The terrestrial planets in our Solar System pose several paradoxes. For example, despite being the product of repeated high-velocity collisions between Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos, the terrestrial planets have relatively low eccentricities and inclinations. As the Earth was forming, the solar nebula in its vicinity was too hot for ice to condense, yet the Earth today has abundant water. New, high-resolution N-body simulations that I have performed have begun to resolve many of these issues. Dynamical friction from a large population of small planetesimals is able to damp the eccentricities and inclinations of the growing planets, and a sufficient amount of water-bearing material from the outer asteroid belt is delivered to the Earth to explain its current water budget. Analyzing these simulations in the context of geochemical and meteoritic evidence shows that this scenario is consistent with Earth’s Deuterium/Hydrogen (D/H) ratio and the abundances and isotop
ic ratios of siderophile elements such as Osmium in the Earth’s mantle. The remnant planetesimal population beyond Mars is consistent with the mass and orbital distribution of the present asteroid belt. I will give a summary of this work, and discuss how lessons learned from such detailed modeling of our Solar System can be applied towards better understanding the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets around other stars. Integrating dynamical models of terrestrial planet formation with chemical models of the condensation of solids in protoplanetary nebulae around other stars, many of which are chemically different from our Sun, allows for the prediction (in a statistical sense) of both the chemical and dynamical properties of terrestrial planets that may exist in those systems. I will present results for several extrasolar planetary systems, and discuss the diversity of possible extrasolar terrestrial planets, from those that are “Earth-like” to planets that may
be very different than those in our Solar System

Canopy water content may be remotely sensed using bands in the shortwave infrared because liquid water strongly absorbs radiation at these wavelengths. There are several potential uses of a canopy water content data product from MODIS and future operational sensors such as VIIRS: a) detection of drought stress, b) mapping potential for fire spread, and c) improve estimates of soil moisture content from microwave data. Plant drought stress is measured by leaf water potential or relative water content, not canopy water content. Differences in canopy water content for stressed and non-stressed plants are smaller than the detection limit, so it is unlikely drought stress can be detected. For microwave remote sensing of soil moisture content, vegetation water content, which is the sum of stem and canopy water content, needs to be determined. Canopy water content is only a small fraction of total vegetation water content. Two field campaigns were conducted to determine if vegetation water content can be estimated from remote sensing, one in the deserts of Arizona and Sonora, and one in agricultural fields of Iowa. Canopy water content seems to have a single linear relationship with the Normalized Difference Infrared Index, based on MODIS bands 2 and 6, for different vegetation cover types. Allometric relationships were constructed to estimate vegetation water content from canopy water content, and these relationships varied for different vegetation cover types. Whereas there is considerable uncertainty in vegetation water content for woodland cover types, the vegetation water content is greater than the limit for detection of soil moisture content.