Dr. Gaffey Awarded Funding for Continued Mineralogical Studies

Congratulations to Dr. Mike Gaffey who received word from NASA that his proposals to the Planetary Astronomy Program and the Near Earth Object Observations Program have been funded for $468,000 for the next three years. These funds will support Dr. Fieber-Beyer and Dr. Reddy as well as two graduate research assistantships. One portion of the research will study asteroids near the 3:1 Kirkwood Gap in the asteroid belt, a zone which should be the source region for most meteorites. The research will also investigate the compositions, sizes and physical structures of Earth-approaching asteroids in order to better plan and evaluate strategies to mitigate potential asteroid impacts, to investigate their potential as resources, and to better understand the early history of the solar system.