Star Talks: Meteors over Mars Hill

Meteors, or shooting stars, are fragments of planetary debris that impact the Earth at high speeds and appear as bright flashes as they vaporize in the atmosphere. These ephemeral events are of interest as tracers of the comets and asteroids that produce meteors, and for particularly large events, can be indicators of meteorites landing on the ground. I will discuss the design of and science from an existing network of video cameras distributed across northern Arizona that autonomously records and detects meteors every night. 

Dr. Nick Moskovitz is an astronomer at Lowell Observatory. He specializes in the study of small bodies in the Solar System such as comets, asteroids, and meteors. This work generally involves observing these objects to understand how the Solar System formed and has evolved over the past four and a half billion years. A particular focus of this work is in the field of planetary defense, which aims to quantify and mitigate the impact hazard posed to the Earth by comets and asteroids.

Star Talks are held in partnership with ​Prescott Astronomy Club and presented with funding from Friends of the Prescott Public Library.