The meeting will take place on October 8, 2026  at 7 PM on Zoom and at the Robinson Nature Center.

Encountering The Unexpected

Presented by:
Dr. Deborah Domingue
Senior Scientist
Planetary Science Institute

Thursday, October 8, 2026, at 7:00 p.m.
Robinson Nature Center and via Zoom

One of the secret joys of space exploration is encountering the unexpected. Each mission begins with a set of expectations, a set of questions to be answered. And each mission encounters things outside that set of expectations and leaves us with new questions to be answered. This is evidenced in the latest set of asteroid missions: Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-Rex.

This presentation will walk you through the set of expectations that began these missions, the questions they hoped to answer, and what they actually encountered. What did we learn from these missions, what were the challenges faced, overcame, and the new set of questions they inspired.