Astronomy talks - Comets and Asteroids

Join Go Stargazing astronomer Dr Fred Stevenson for this one of a series of fascinating lectures in the Friarage Theatre at the Princess Alexandria Auditorium.

Comets – denizens of our solar system far from the Sun – have long been considered as ‘omens of doom’. However modern research has shown that comets are the primordial building blocks of planets which may have brought complex molecules and water to the infant Earth.

Comets are therefore essential for our existence providing the Earth with the necessary ingredients for life ‘as we know it’. However, it has also been shown that the impact of comets, and their more rocky cousins the asteroids, on the Earth over many eons have caused major destruction – including mass extinctions – most notably in the famous case of the dinosaurs. Ultimately that was also to our benefit, allowing the mammals to ‘come out of hiding’.

The next one may not be! – however current space missions dedicated to deflecting asteroids have shown that we can for the first time in history do something about it!