Impact Researchers and Near-Earth Object Hunters

Here are some web pages both of researchers into comet and asteroid impacts and the impact threat, and individuals active in searching for near-Earth objects. A few offer online preprints or abstracts of their latest work.

• Mark Bailey is the director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. He has written extensively on the origin and evolution of comets and near-Earth objects.
• Martin Beech of Campion College at The University of Regina studies meteor astronomy, fireball phenomena such as VLF radio emiision and light flickering, hazards attributable to meteor storms like the Leonids, and the distribution of meteoroids within the Solar System.
• Bill Bottke works at the Center for Radiophysics and Astronomy in the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University. He is primarily interested in asteroids: their formation, their evolution, their composition, and their structure.
• Ted Bowell works at Lowell Observatory. His interests include orbital, dynamical, and physical studies of asteroids. He has undertaken a major study of asteroid colors which indicate their composition. He is also working on new technologies for finding near-Earth objects.
• Clark R. Chapman works at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He has written widely on many aspects of near-Earth objects.
• John Keith Davies of the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo, Hawaii studies comets, Edgeworth/Kuiper belt objects, and near-Earth asteroid sizes.

Paolo Farinella

• Paolo Farinella worked at the Space Mechanics Group at the University of Pisa, Italy. His interests included the earth cratering flux, the future evolution of earth-orbiting debris, and the disruption of natural satellites. He passed away in March, 2000.
• Paolo Farinella, planetary scientist offers a personal retrospective by Luigi Foschini.



• Luigi Foschini works in meteor physics. In his recent work he has suggested a solution for the Tunguska event, investigated the interaction of radio waves with meteoric plasma, and offered a space charge model for electrophonic bursters.
• Tom Gehrels works at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. He directs the Spacewatch Project at Kitt Peak Observatory.
• Eleanor Helin works in the department of Geology and Planetology at the Jet Propulsion Lab. She is Principal Investigator of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program.
• John S. Lewis works at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. He is interested in modeling the chemistry of the early solar system and in developing the material and energetic resources of near-Earth objects.
• David H. Levy was co-discover of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which collided with Jupiter in 1994.
• Stan Love works at the California Institute of Technology. His interests include shock temperatures in Calcite (particularly as applied to the end-Cretaceous impact), hydrodynamic simulation of asteroid impacts, and the distortion and destruction of asteroids by planetary tides.
• H. Jay Melosh works at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. His interests include impact cratering, planetary tectonics, the physics of earthquakes and landslides, the giant impact origin of the Earth's moon, the ejection of rocks from parent bodies, and the end-Cretaceous impact event.
• Patrick Michel of the Osservatorio Astronomico Di Torino studies dynamics of small bodies and the physics of collisions as well as the origin of near-Earth objects and meteorites.
• Andrea Milani works in the Space Mechanics Group at the University of Pisa, Italy. His interests include asteroids, solar system stability, and near earth objects.
• Joe Montani works at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. He is involved in the Spacewatch Survery for Near Earth Asteroids and Comets as well as a spectroscopic radial-velocity search for extrasolar planets.
• David Morrison is Director of Space (love that title!) at NASA Ames Research Center. His Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazard page offers the primary web resource on this topic.
• Bill Napier is a research astronomer at the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. Along with Victor Clube, he is the originator of the British neo-catastrophist school of coherent catastrophism
• Steve Pravdo works in the Imaging and Spectroscopy Systems Technology section of the Observational Systems Division at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is a member of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking project.
• Michael Rampino is a faculty member at New York University. His research interests include the causes of mass extinctions, the effects of large-body impacts on the Earth, periodicities and correlation of major geological events, the "Galactic Carousel" theory of comet showers, and the relationship of volcanoes to climate.
• Derek C. Richardson works at the University of Washington. He has worked on the "rubble pile" model of the tidal breakup of objects like Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and of near-Earth asteroids as a possible explanation for crater chains on the Earth and Moon.
• Jim Scotti is a Senior Research Specialist at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. He is involved in the Spacewatch Survey for near-Earth asteroids. His interests also include the origin and evolution of comets as well as cometary observation.

Eugene Shoemaker

• Eugene Shoemaker, who spent much of his life researching impact events, died in an automobile accident on Friday, July 18, 1997. His wife and colleague Carolyn was injured but is recovering. Please see this CNN article for more details.
• Eugene M. Shoemaker by Virginia Keiper offers a biography and appreciation by Mary Chapman, photos, and an update on Carolyn Shoemaker's condition.



• John Spencer works at Lowell Observatory. His interests include the thermal behavior of selected asteroids in order to determine their size and composition. He co-authored, with Jacqueline Mitton, a book about the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto Jupiter entitled The Great Comet Crash.
• David J. Tholen works at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. He performs physical and dynamical studies of small bodies. He is particularly interested in the Arjuna asteroids whose perihelia never exceeds the Earth's orbit.
• Owen Brian Toon is a faculty member in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado. His research interests include radiative transfer, cloud physics, atmospheric chemistry, and environmental effects of asteroid and cosmic impacts.
• Richard Peter Turco is a member of the Atmospheric Sciences department at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Some of his research interests include the stratospheric ozone layer and the ozone hole, the environmental effects of airborne particles, air pollution and air quality, global biogeochemical cycles, climate forcing and change, the atmospheres of other planets, and cosmic impacts as the cause for mass extinctions. Turco and his colleagues developed the "nuclear winter"
• Ann M. Vickery works at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. Her interests include impact cratering and computer modeling. She has worked on atmospheric erosion by large impacts and impact melt and vapor production.

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Last modified by pib on July 6, 2003.