Asteroid Day Celebration

Wednesday, June 30
7-8 p.m.
Free on Facebook and YouTube

 Join us for an asteroid day celebration, a global effort to highlight asteroid detection, research, as well as the current and future missions to explore them. Our celebration will include a recorded interview by a panel of Chabot’s teen Galaxy Explorers of Astronaut Dr. Edward Lu, Executive Director of the Asteroid Institute and one of the founding members of B612, an organization that works towards protecting the Earth from asteroid impacts. 

Our speakers of the evening will be Dr. Thomas Prettyman, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on what small bodies have to say about planetary evolution and the importance of asteroid research and Chabot astronomer Gerald McKeegan on Chabot’s asteroid research, detection processes and discoveries.  

ASTRONAUT DR. EDWARD LU, B612 

Astronaut Dr. Edward Lu is an explorer whose quest is to map the unknown—whether by surveying the oceans at Liquid Robotics, leading Google Advanced Projects Team to map our neighborhoods, or his current work unveiling the secrets of the inner solar system. Ed co-founded the B612 with Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, Clark Chapman and others. Ed currently serves as Executive Director of the Asteroid Institute. As an astronaut, Ed has flown three missions logging 206 days in space, to construct and live aboard the International Space Station. A graduate of Cornell, Ed earned a Ph.D. from Stanford, and has numerous commendations, including NASA’s highest honor: The Distinguished Service Medal. 

GERALD MCKEEGAN, CHABOT SPACE & SCIENCE CENTER

 Gerald McKeegan joined Chabot in the year 2000 as a volunteer and adjunct astronomer. Gerald serves on Chabot’s Board of Directors and is a member of the Eastbay Astronomical Society. McKeegan holds a Master of Science Degree in Space Studies and has over 40 years experience working in the space industry, where he was involved with numerous spacecraft projects, including the Space Shuttle, Cassini, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars InSight, Solar B, Juno and many others. In 1988, he was awarded the NASA “Silver Snoopy” award by the NASA Astronaut Office for his work in support of the Post-Challenger Space Shuttle Return to Flight program. Gerald also heads Chabot’s near-Earth asteroid search and tracking program and has made more than two thousand asteroid observations using Chabot’s 36-inch telescope. 

THOMAS PRETTYMAN, PLANETARY INSTITUTE

Dr. Thomas Prettyman, a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, has worked on several NASA missions, including Lunar Prospector, 2001 Mars Odyssey, and Dawn. He was the Principal Investigator for the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector investigation on Dawn, which explored the two most massive bodies in the main asteroid belt, 4 Vesta and 1 Ceres. He is a co-Investigator of the Psyche mission to the main belt asteroid 16 Psyche and the LunaH-Map cubesat mission to the Moon. His research is focused on what asteroids can tell us about the formation and evolution of planets in our solar system.