Campus News Briefs – Winter 2016

Voyage to an Asteroid 

CU Boulder is a key player in NASA’s mission to touch an asteroid, grab pieces and send them to Earth. CU aerospace engineering professor Daniel Scheeres and colleagues will help assess near-Earth asteroid Bennu before the spacecraft makes contact. 

“We essentially will be weighing the asteroid to see how the ma ss is distributed within it,” said Scheeres, leader of the mission’s radio science team. “We need to know the mass and gravity field of the asteroid before the spacecraft comes in contact with it and to understand the sample we will collect.”

NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft left in September.It will eject its Bennu sample Earthward in 2023.

Learning more about Bennu could, among other things, help minimize the small risk of a future collision with Earth.

Read more about CU’s role.

Heard Around Campus 

Beyond our cultural biases, what really is the difference between a Shakespeare play, an orchestra concert and a basketball game?" 

— CU Boulder professor Roger Pielke Jr. (Math’90; PhDPolSci’94) in a New York Times op-ed arguing in favor of academic degrees in athletics.

Police Shoot, Kill Campus Intruder 

Campus and City of Boulder Police shot and killed an armed campus intruder Oct. 5

The intruder, identified as Brandon Simmons, 28, a recently discharged U.S. Marine with no CU affiliation, had threatened a person in a Folsom Field parking lot with a long, bladed weapon, then went into the Champions Center and tried entering the athletic department offices. CU personnel refused to let him in, leaving him locked in a stairwell. Police shot him during a tense encounter. No one else was hurt.

Read a statement by Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano.