Location: Prescott Public Library, Founder’s Suite
Speaker: Dr. Nick Moskovitz
Comments:
Late 2022 NASA’s DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into an asteroid at a speed of
more than 13,000 mph. Given this dramatic end, ground based telescopes, including
several at Lowell Observatory, will be tasked with witnessing the aftermath. I will
discuss background to the DART mission, what is expected to happen, and why
smashing into things in outer space can be fun.
Bio:
Dr. Nick Moskovitz is an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He has
degrees from the University of California at Santa Barbara (BS Physics) and the
University of Hawaii (PhD Astronomy). His research is related to small bodies in the
Solar System with active projects involving video observations of meteors, curation of
an asteroid database (asteroid.lowell.edu), and observations of near-Earth asteroids.