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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, March 12, 2018 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Joseph Nuth

"Planetary Defense, Impact Hazards, & OSIRIS Rex"

ABSTRACT -- Human civilization has come a long way since realizing that comets and asteroids posed a threat that has previously caused major extinction events on the Earth: that an asteroid impact was the probable cause for the extinction of the dinosaurs was a shock to many earth scientists in 1980 who firmly believed that forces outside the Earth had virtually no effect on terrestrial evolution. Since then the number of known asteroids has increased from ~ 5000 to more than 700,000. The speaker will present a brief overview of the OSIRIS-REx mission and its role in Planetary Defense. He will then discuss steps that might be followed if an imminent impact hazard were detected.

SPEAKER -- Joe Nuth came to Goddard Space Flight Center in the summer of 1975 as a student intern in the Astrochemistry Branch after receiving B.S. degrees in Astronomy and Chemistry from the University of Maryland. He continued studies at the University of Maryland and research at GSFC receiving a M.S. in Geochemistry (1977) and Ph.D. in Chemistry (1982) He won a NAS/NRC Fellowship (1981) to study the formation and properties of dust in stellar environments and spent a year (1984) as a NAS/NRC Research Management Associate at NASA Headquarters before eventually becoming a NASA civil servant (1986) and Branch Head (1990-2008). He continued his association with NASA HQ as the Discipline Scientist for the Origins of Solar Systems (1989-1994) and for the Planetary Materials and Geochemistry (1995-6) Research Programs. He has authored more than 150 refereed publications and continues to be) involved in several proposed missions to asteroids and comets. He is currently Deputy Project Scientist for the OSIRIS-REx mission and the Senior Scientist for Primitive Bodies in the Solar System Exploration Division at GSFC.

Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov