UH panel will discuss threat of killer asteroids
NASA astronaut Ed Lu will be among those speaking at the event
NASA astronaut Ed Lu, former solar physicist at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, will join the institute's experts in a program on Monday on "Killer Asteroids and What we can do About Them."
He will participate in a panel discussion with:
» David Tholen, an astronomer who specializes in the study of asteroids and comets and developed an asteroid classification system in wide use. He discovered Apophis, the asteroid that will pass within 20,000 miles of the Earth in 2029.
» Robert Jedicke, a planetary astronomer who specializes in study of asteroids that might impact Earth.
» Nick Kaiser, cosmologist and principal investigator for the Pan-STARRS telescope project to detect and track asteroids from Hawaii.
Lu was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Astronomy from 1992 to 1995 when he became an astronaut.
He spent six months aboard the International Space Station in 2003 and has proposed a "gravity tractor" that could alter the orbit of a dangerous asteroid.
The free "Frontiers of Astronomy" community lecture will be open to the public at 7 p.m. in the UH-Manoa Art Building Auditorium. Co-sponsors are the Institute for Astronomy and NASA.
The astronomers also will give an "AstroTalk" panel discussion at 7 p.m. Friday at UH-Hilo.