Near-Earth Asteroids and Comet Impacts featured in the Fall 2000 Barringer Lecture

We learned as children that there are two ways to study things; we hold them up close to our eyes so we can see clearly, and we smash them to pieces so we can see inside. These two ideas are behind current research into near-Earth asteroids and comets, as will be explained by Lucy-Ann McFadden when she delivers the fall 2000 Barringer Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13 in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main.

McFadden, of the University of Maryland, works with two teams investigating comets and asteroids with unmanned spacecraft. The first spacecraft, Shoemaker-NEAR, is approaching the end of its spectacularly successful mission to investigate the near-Earth asteroid Eros at close range. The spacecraft has returned an extraordinary amount of information about the asteroid, information that will take years to sift through.

Asteroids interest researchers because they contain information about how the solar system formed, possibly answering one of the major questions in modern science. Near-Earth asteroids interest scientists because many have the potential to impact Earth: an asteroid impact probably destroyed the dinosaurs, and impact craters pockmark the Earth’s surface beneath its vegetation. Asteriods might also be an important source of natural resources, once mankind has a permanent presence in space.

The second mission McFadden works on is called Deep Impact and it is at the beginning of its planning and construction phase. Deep Impact will fire a large javelin into a comet with the hope of destroying it so its interior will be visible to telescopes on Earth.

For further information or to make an appointment to interview Dr. McFadden, please contact Derek Sears, (479) 575 5204, dsears@uark.edu