Lecture: Comets, Asteroids and Near Earth Objects

Steve Bellavia
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Suffolk County Community College & Custer Institute

  Via Zoom. Go to WAA web site for the link!

This is a talk on comets, asteroids and Near Earth Objects discovered in the last several years.
It includes visitors from other star systems as well as close neighbors who pose potential hazards, crossing earth’s orbit every several years.
 
Steven Bellavia is an amateur astronomer and telescope maker.  He is an aerospace engineer who worked for Grumman Aerospace with the Thermodynamics Group of the Space Division. He had a key role in developing a nuclear rocket engine, and performed the analysis, design and fabrication of the micro-gravity liquid droplet radiator that flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-029.  

Steve has been at Brookhaven National Laboratory since 1992 and was the principal mechanical engineer for the camera on the Vera Rubin (formerly called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST).  Prior to that, he was doing research and engineering for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory.

Steve has been recognized for the discovery of the Clair Obscure effect “Lunar L”, which is described in the December 2018 issue of Astronomy magazine.

Steve is an assistant adjunct professor of astronomy and physics at Suffolk County Community College and the Astronomy Education and Outreach Coordinator at the Custer Institute and Observatory in Southold, New York.