NASA’s latest launch into outer space is going to make an impact. In fact, that’s its entire mission.
It’s all part of a long-term planetary defense strategy to avoid an “Armageddon” scenario, and NAU planetary scientist Cristina Thomas is part of the team studying this event.
Read more here.
Planetary astronomer Josh Emery, professor in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, leads the Surface Composition Working Group (SCWG) for the [LUCY] mission. It’s his job to help plan the observations of the targets that are required to answer the open science questions about Trojan asteroids. The group will determine what materials the asteroids are made of as they search for ice, complex organic molecules and rocky material that will indicate… Read more
In support of their Mars research, Koeppel (on the left) and Edwards (right) conducted an analog study in a cinder field near Flagstaff, Arizona. At the Flagstaff study site, they were able to collect data in the field and compare it with the data collected from the drones, simulating satellite imagery.
Read the full article here.
Mark Loeffler is a co-author on a new manuscript in Nature Astronomy. This was a large collaborative work combining laboratory studies and analysis of grains from Itokawa. The results suggest that much of the water in Earth’s oceans could have originated from water created from solar wind implantation onto rocky airless bodies, such as asteroids. The work has been picked up by a few news organizations.
From Newsweek Magazine: Solar Winds Could… Read more
Here are a bunch of places where Cristina appeared in media reports over the past couple of weeks:
KNAU: NASA spacecraft will collide with asteroid in planetary defense test
The Atlantic:
DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is NASA’s first planetary defense mission. This mission will demonstrate asteroid deflection via kinetic impact. The goal is to collide with the target to see how the orbit changes. It’s a test run to see if such a plan is feasible should we find an asteroid on a collision course with… Read more