“Great Balls of Fire: Comets, Meteors, Asteroids” at Lowell Observatory

This summer’s interactive exhibition, “Great Balls of Fire: Comets, Meteors, Asteroids”, will run from June 22, 2013 through September 2, 2013. The threat of a catastrophic impact from an asteroid or comet is a staple of popular culture. If there was a dinosaur killer in Earth’s past, is there a human killer in our future? What are the chances and how do we assess the risks? For that matter, what are asteroids, comets, and meteorites, and where do they come from? With “Great Balls of Fire: Comets, Asteroids, Meteors”, Lowell Observatory will bring recent discoveries and cutting-edge planetary science to our visitors. The exhibition is divided into four areas: Origins, Asteroids, Comets and Impacts/Risk. It includes a variety of interactive, multimedia experiences, ranging from straightforward computer-based activities to a larger scale, “pod” where visitors play the role of explorers-in-training—an important theme that threads throughout the exhibition. The exhibit comes as 2013 is dubbed "year of the comet", with Comet PANSTARRS having passed by early in the year and Comet ISON approaching for a potentially spectacular pass late in the year. (This work was completed by the Space Science Institute, which was supported by NSF under Grant No. ESI-0404414.)