Distinguished Research Scientist To Talk About The Asteroid Impact Hazard

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Alan Harris, senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will visit the University of Arkansas next week to present a public lecture about the threat of asteroids, entitled "Is the Sky Falling? The Asteroid Impact Hazard."

The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, February 25, in the Poultry Science Auditorium, room 211. The talk is part of the 2002 lecture series hosted by the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences.

Asteroid impact hazard is the most extreme of natural disasters. The number of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 kilometer in diameter is currently about 1,200. To date, almost half of them have been discovered. Harris will discuss the effects of past impacts on the Earth — both large, including the giant impact that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, and smaller, more recent impacts like the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona. He will conclude with a brief examination of the societal issues of how such a hazard should be communicated to the public.

Alan Harris has been at JPL since completing his doctorate at UCLA in 1975. His interest in asteroids began during his undergraduate work at Caltech in the '60s when he visited the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona with a class taught by Eugene Shoemaker. Harris’ graduate training is in orbital dynamics, directed at understanding small bodies in the solar system, which has lent well to his research on asteroids and impact hazard. This lecture is dedicated to his longtime friend and mentor, the late Eugene M. Shoemaker.

The lecture is free to the public.

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