AE 590 Seminar Speaker: James (Gerbs) Bauer - Hazards and Thresholds: The Anatomy of Planetary Defense

Abstract: Since the advent of the earliest digital sky surveys over four decades ago, systems, facilities, and organizations have been inaugurated and optimized to detect and identify asteroids and comets that may pose a hazard to Earth.

From the telescopes that discover these bodies, the follow-up observers that characterize them, the data and analysis centers that evaluate the information, and the decision-making entities that rank the priorities, we will review the Planetary Defense infrastructure in its present state.

We will also introduce the expectations towards improved sensitivity and coverage offered from the next generation of surveys, and the impact they are expected to have on the planetary defense sub-discipline of planetary astronomy.

Bio: James (Gerbs) Bauer is the Principal Investigator of the NASA Planetary Data System's Small Bodies Node, managed by the University of Maryland, which oversees the IAU's Minor Planet Center and organizes the International Asteroid Warning Network observing campaigns with support from NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

Before joining UMD, Dr. Bauer was also the Lead Scientist of the WISE mission's moving object pipeline subsystem, and the NEOWISE Deputy PI at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and IPAC (formerly the Infrared Processing & Analysis Center), and is part of the NEO Surveyor Science Team.