Evening Lectures on Migrating Planets, Hazardous Asteroids Search

Ursa Major

(Click to enlarge) Ursa Major appears in the night sky above the 60-inch telescope on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, one of three telescopes now used in UA's Catalina Sky Survey. (Photo: Copyright Catalina Sky Survey)

Early Solar System

(Click to enlarge) In this artist's concept, a narrow asteroid belt filled with rocks and dusty debris orbits a star similar to our own sun when it was approximately 30 million years old. (Illustration credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T.Pyle, SSC)

By University Communications September 4, 2009

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory scientists will talk about their latest research in the free public lecture series.

The University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is launching its Fall 2009 Evening Lecture Series with talks on wandering solar system planets and searches for hazardous asteroids from Mount Lemmon.

The hour-long lectures begin at 7 p.m. in the Room 308, the Kuiper Space Sciences Building lecture hall. The Kuiper Space Sciences Building is located on the UA campus at 1629 E. University Boulevard.

All lectures are free and open to the community. Parking is available at the Cherry Avenue Garage for $1 per hour. Street parking at meters is free after 5 p.m. unless otherwise designated,  and also available in Zone 1 lots.

Planetary sciences professor Renu Malhotra will speak on “Migrating Planets” on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

Did the solar system always look the way it is now?  New studies by Malhotra and others find that the outer planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – were more tightly clustered in the early solar system, then moved away from each other.

Malhotra’s models show that as the solar system evolved, Jupiter moved slightly closer to the sun, while the other giant planets moved farther apart from each other and farther away from the sun. 

The migration likely perturbed asteroids that contributed to the heavy bombardment of the inner solar system.

The evidence is recorded as close as the moon and as far away as Pluto.

Catalina Sky Survey director Ed Beshore will talk on “The Search for Hazardous Asteroids from Mount Lemmon” on Tuesday, Oct. 20.

On Oct. 5, 2008, the UA’s Catalina Sky Survey discovered a small asteroid named 2008 TC3. It is the first asteroid discovered with a 100 percent certainty of colliding with Earth.

Just 17 hours after Catalina Sky Survey team member Rich Kowalski discovered 2008 TC3, it fell harmlessly in the desert of northern Sudan. During those 17 hours, amateur and professional astronomers made more than 570 observations of the asteroid. Months later, U.S. and African students and researchers recovered more than eight pounds of meteorites from the fall.

Beshore will also talk about how the Catalina Sky Survey searchers for dangerous asteroids, and some ideas about what might be done if an Earth-threatening asteroid is found.