Topic, "Asteroids, Water, and Life on Earth"

Hi. This month we will have a fascinating discussion at our Cafe Sci at 7PM on Wednesday 9 January, at Taste, in College Park.

The recent discoveries of water ice and organic molecules on two asteroids, 24 Themis and 65 Cybele, are transforming current views of the delivery of water and organic molecules to Earth by asteroids, and the origin and evolution of life on Earth. These discoveries also have important implications for the three current asteroid sample return missions: NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, the ESA's Marco Polo-R mission and the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa-2 mission.

In August 2002, Dr. Campins joined the UCF faculty as Provost Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy and head of the Planetary and Space Science Group. Dr. Campins' research area is astronomy. He studies comets, asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system using a variety of ground-based, airborne and space-based telescopes. This research is funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation.

Directions

Taste
717 W. Smith Street
Orlando, United States
32804

Taste is near the corner of Princeton Street (really Smith Street after the fork) and Edgewater Drive, so about 2 minutes from I-4 to parking. One can park on the street or in the parking lot behind Taste.

From Downtown and south, drive north ("east") on I-4 through downtown. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and turn left/west.
From Altamonte Springs and north, drive south ("west") on I-4 toward downtown Orlando. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and turn right/west.

From I-4, drive a few blocks to Edgewater Drive. At the intersection, you should see a orange building ahead of you, labeled "Taste". Park on the street or behind Taste.

Google Plus and Facebook

Since more an more people are moving away from email as primary medium of online communication, Cafe Sci is adding Google Plus and Facebook community pages.

Google Plus is already set up and operating. There, events, with full descriptions, can be automatically added to your calendar. http://goo.gl/PLdxy Add it to your Circles.

The Facebook community-page still needs work. Chad, cafesci@chad.org, is eager to let someone else take it over. Please send an example of a community you moderate already if you're interested. It should be low-effort and mostly an announcement-only kind of community, not anything that consumes much effort.