Kring to Present Public Lecture at Houston Museum of Natural Science
June 30, 2016
Dr. David Kring, a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, will present a public lecture in the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Thursday, June 30, at 6:30 p.m.
In “Asteroid Day 2016 — Threat of Impact Update,” Kring will give an update to his 2015 Asteroid Day presentation and describe the magnitude of the persisting threat today posed by asteroids and the steps we might take to mitigate these types of calamitous events in the future.
In 2013 the world was riveted by the impact of an asteroid near the Russian town of Chelyabinsk, where more than 1000 people were injured. It was an eerie reminder of another, bigger, impact event that flattened a forest near the Tunguska River in Siberia on June 30, 1908 — and a modern-day example of the immense dinosaur-killing Chicxulub impact event in the Yucatán.
Kring specializes in impact cratering processes produced when asteroids and comets collide with planetary surfaces. He has worked extensively at Meteor Crater, which is one of the world’s most spectacular near-Earth asteroid impact sites. Kring is perhaps best known, however, for his work with the discovery of the Chicxulub impact crater, which he linked to the K-T boundary mass extinction of dinosaurs and over half of the plants and animals that existed on Earth 65 million years ago. He is the Principal Investigator of the Center for Lunar Science and Exploration, a member of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute.
Tickets for the lecture are $18.00 ($12.00 for members). The Houston Museum of Natural Science is located at 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston TX 77030.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit
Lecture — Asteroid Day 2016 — Threat of Impact Update by David Kring
Last updated June 30, 2016
