Topic
“Impact experiments at NASA’s Ames Vertical Gun Range” by Dr Dan Durda, SWrI
Abstract
The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) sample return mission to the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) (101955) Bennu and the Hayabusa2 mission to (162173) Ryugu offer unprecedented opportunities to gain fundamental new knowledge about the processes governing regolith formation and redistribution on small bodies. Both asteroids display unexpected examples of small crater and boulder morphologies that raise new questions about the properties of coarse regoliths on small, primitive NEAs and processes governing the evolution of their surfaces. Experimentally documenting the range in morphology of fracture patterns of boulders in coarse regoliths and the form of small craters in coarse regoliths as a function of parameters like impact energy, depth of burial, and mechanical strength is a crucial step in the process of relating these amazing spacecraft images to the actual physical properties of these asteroids surfaces. I will share some of my results from my impact experiments at NASA’s Ames Vertical Gun Range.
Bio
Dr. Dan Durda is a principal scientist in the Department of Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. He has more than 20 years’ experience researching the collisional and dynamical evolution of main-belt and near-Earth asteroids, Vulcanoids, Kuiper belt comets, and interplanetary dust. Dr. Durda is one of three SwRI payload specialists who fly on multiple spaceflights on commercial reusable suborbital vehicles.
Location
The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501.
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