This year for British Science Week 2020
Professor Simon Green will be presenting
Near-Earth Asteroids: A matter of life and death?
Wednesday 11th March at University of Bedfordshire, Putteridgebury Conference Centre, Luton
from 7.30pm (doors open at 7pm).
Asteroids, which mostly orbit between Mars and Jupiter, are the remaining fragments of bodies which never coalesced into planets, and retain material that has been relatively unaltered since the earliest stages of the formation of the Solar System. Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) provide a link between this primordial reservoir and the meteorites we collect on the Earth and are the most accessible Solar System objects for space missions. NEAs pose a potential threat to life on Earth, being implicated in past mass extinctions, but may also have brought the building blocks of life to the Earth and created the ecological space for humans to evolve.
Simon Green, Professor of Planetary and Space Science at The Open University, has studied NEAs through ground- and space-based observations since his discovery of the unusual asteroid (3200) Phaethon in 1983. He has worked on numerous space missions including Giotto, Cassini, Stardust and Rosetta. In this lecture, he will focus on current and future space missions to NEAs to understand the origins of the Solar System and life, and how to prevent a potential future asteroid impact on the Earth.
Tickets are free, but places are limited. Click below to reserve your place:
Organised by Luton Astronomical Society and University of Bedfordshire
Observing Evening is planned for 12th March (the next day!) at Putteridge Bury from 8.00pm-10.00pm (last admission 8.30pm) .. Please ‘contact us‘ in you are planning to attend
