[meteorite-list] University of Tennesse Geologist Helps NASA Explore Giant Asteroids (Dawn)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:44 2004
Message-ID: <200201102133.NAA17090_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://pr.tennessee.edu/news/article.asp?id=1202

UT Geologist Helps NASA Explore Giant Asteroids
University of Tennessee
January 7, 2002

KNOXVILLE -- A University of Tennessee geologist is part of NASA's latest
mission, which seeks to study the two largest known asteroids in the solar
system.

Dr. Harry Y. "Hap" McSween has been named to NASA's Dawn mission, which
launches in 2006 on a nine-year journey to orbit the asteroids Vesta and
Ceres.

"These asteroids are two 'baby planets' that are very different from each
other yet both contain tantalizing clues about the formation of the solar
system," McSween said.

NASA will use special instruments to observe the two bodies located in the
asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, McSween said.

Ceres, the largest asteroid, has a diameter of about 600 miles. Scientists
are intrigued by its primitive development, including a relatively unscathed
surface, water-bearing minerals and possibly a very weak atmosphere and
frost, McSween said.

Vesta is the brightest asteroid and the only one visible by the naked eye.
Its average diameter is about 320 miles.

Vesta's surface is dry and has been resurfaced by lava flows, McSween said.
Like the Earth's Moon, it has been hit many times by smaller space rocks,
sending out meteorites at least five times in the last 50 million years.
McSween is among those scientists who have studied meteorites from these
impacts.

During its journey through the asteroid belt, Dawn will rendezvous with
Vesta and Ceres, orbiting from 500 miles to about 62 miles above the
surface.

The mission will determine these asteroids physical attributes such as
shape, size, mass, craters and internal structure, and produce data on more
complex properties such as composition, density and magnetism, McSween said.

McSween was a science team member of NASA's Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global
Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions. He also will be working on the Mars
Exploration Rover mission in 2003.

An advisor to NASA and the National Research Council, McSween was president
of the Meteoritical Society and chaired the Planetary Division of the
Geological Society of America. He won the Leonard medal, the top award in
planetary science, in 2001.

Dawn's principal investigator is Dr. Christopher T. Russell of the
University of California, Los Angeles. It is one of two missions selected
for funding from 26 NASA proposals in 2001. The second is Kepler, a
spaceborne telescope which will look for earth-like planets.

Information about Dawn is available at: http://www.college.ucla.edu/dawn/

--
Contact:  Dr. Harry Y. McSween (865-974-9805)
          Mike Bradley (865-974-5034)

Received on Thu 10 Jan 2002 04:33:46 PM PST