The protagonist of the meeting with the expert on 13 February is Frank Brenker, director of the Schwiete Cosmochemistry Laboratory at Goethe University in Frankfurt, member of the research team of many modern sampling missions of extraterrestrial bodies.

Introduced by the Museum’s scientific director Fabrizio Nestola, the guest will talk about the surprising results of the recent sample return missions by NASA and JAXA (Japanese Space Agency) from the asteroids Bennu and Ryugu, rich in carbon and water. Both missions, dedicated to searching for the fundamental building blocks of life and the origin of Earth’s water, as well as preparing for possible asteroid collisions with Earth, collected samples on the surface of asteroids and brought them safely back to Earth.

The presentation in the Auditorium is followed by the presentation of four new meteorites of exceptional scientific importance, curated by Anna Barbaro, and by an in-depth analysis in the Meteorites room with the speaker and Simone Molinari, curator of the Museum’s mineralogy collections.

Participation is free, upon reservation, and does not include a visit to the Museum.

The speaker’s speech will be in English, with consecutive translation into Italian.