Physics Colloquium with Br. Guy Consolmagno
When: Thu. Feb. 19, 4:00 pm
Where: Fisher Hall 139 – Michigan Technological University
Houghton, Mi 49931
Website: https://events.mtu.edu/event/physics-colloquium-with-guy-consolmagno
Event Details
Guy Consolmagno from Vatican Observatory will present at this week’s Physics Colloquium. Br.Guy Consolmagno’s presentation is titled “What’s Surfacing About Bennu?”.
The seminar will be presented at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday (Feb.19) in Fisher 139. The coffee hour will be held at 3:30 in the Fisher Hall Lobby.
Abstract The recent NASA sample-return mission to asteroid Bennu, OSIRIS-REx, discovered a surface that, at first glance, didn’t make sense: it appeared to be covered with boulders, but it absorbed heat like a powder. Now that we have samples, can we explain this? What’s going on and how did it get that way? Our measurements of the most likely analog meteorite type, CI and CM carbonaceous chondrites, suggests a surprising answer.
Bio Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ is Director Emeritus of the Vatican Observatory. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he earned undergraduate and masters’ degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989. At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, his research has explored the evolution of small solar system bodies; most recently in measuring meteorite physical properties to understanding asteroid origins and structure. He currently serves as President of the Meteoritical Society (2025-2026), chairs the Mars Task Group of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature, and has served as the Chair of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Science (2006-2007).