Events

Colloquium by Michelle Thompson, Purdue

Asteroids are a relic of the earliest days of our solar system and the analysis of material returned from these planetary bodies allows us to take an inventory of the building blocks of the terrestrial planets and the organic materials that could have seeded life on Earth. I will present the journey of the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu and back again, from its launch in 2016 to the recent return of samples to Earth in Sept. 2023. I will discuss the first results of the analysis of Bennu material and what these samples have revealed about the conditions and processes operating in the early solar system.

Followed by wine and cheese.

Host: Daniel Wolf Savin