[meteorite-list] NASA Hosts News and Social Media Events Around This Week's Asteroid Pass

[Ron Baalke]

May 29, 2013

Sarah Ramsey      
Headquarters, Washington            
202-358-1694 
sarah.ramsey at nasa.gov 


MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-086

NASA HOSTS NEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA EVENTS AROUND THIS WEEK'S ASTEROID PASS

WASHINGTON -- NASA is inviting members of the media and public to 
participate in online and television events May 30-31 with NASA 
officials and experts discussing the agency's asteroid initiative and 
the Earth flyby of the 1.7-mile-long asteroid 1998 QE2. 

At 4:59 p.m. EDT, Friday, May 31, 1998 QE2 will pass by Earth at a 
safe distance of about 3.6 million miles -- its closest approach for 
at least the next two centuries. The asteroid was discovered Aug. 19, 
1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near 
Earth Asteroid Research Program near Socorro, N.M. 

The schedule of events is: 

Thursday, May 30 
-- 1:30-2:30 p.m.: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, 
Calif., will show on NASA Television live telescope images of the 
asteroid and host a discussion with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden 
and experts from JPL and the Goldstone Deep Space Communications 
Complex. Scientists at Goldstone will be using radar to track and 
image the asteroid. 

The event also will be streamed live on the agency's website at: 

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv 

The event also will be available on Ustream.tv with live chat 
capability at: 

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 

Viewers may submit questions in advance to @AsteroidWatch on Twitter 
with the hashtag #asteroidQE2. 

-- 8-10 p.m.: Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's 
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will host an online 
chat at: 

http://www.nasa.gov/chat 


Friday, May 31 

-- 2-3 p.m., NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver will participate in 
a White House "We the Geeks" Google+ Hangout. Participants will 
discuss asteroid identification, characterization, resource 
utilization, and hazard mitigation. The hangout can be viewed at the 
White House website at: 

https://plus.google.com/+whitehouse/posts 

NASA recently announced plans to find, study, capture and relocate an 
asteroid for exploration by astronauts. The asteroid initiative is a 
strategy to leverage human and robotic activities for the first human 
mission while accelerating efforts to improve detection and 
characterization of asteroids. 

For more about NASA's asteroid activities, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroid 
	
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