Science Cafe Orlando

Note, this is one week later than usual, so as to avoid the day after New Years’.

The recent discoveries of water ice and organic molecules on two asteroids, 24 Themis and 65 Cybele, are transforming current views of the delivery of water and organic molecules to Earth by asteroids, and the origin and evolution of life on Earth. These discoveries also have important implications for the three current asteroid sample return missions: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, the European Space Agency’s Marco Polo-R mission and the Japanese Space Agency’s Hayabusa-2 mission.

In August 2002, Dr. Campins joined the UCF faculty as Provost Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy and head of the Planetary and Space Science Group. Dr. Campins’ research area is astronomy. He studies comets, asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system using a variety of ground based, airborne and space based telescopes. This research is funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation.