Daniel Britt
professor
physics
University of Central Florida
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Daniel Britt was educated at the University of Washington and Brown University, receiving a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Brown in 1991. He does research on the physical properties and mineralogy of asteroids, comets, the Moon, and Mars under several NASA grants and is the director of the Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science (CLASS). He has served on the science teams of two NASA missions, Mars Pathfinder and Deep Space 1, and is currently on the New Horizons Science Team for the flyby of the Kuiper Belt asteroid 2014 MU69. He was the project manager for the camera on Mars Pathfinder and has built hardware for all the NASA Mars landers. Honors include 6 NASA Achievement Awards, election as a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society, and an asteroid named after him; 4395 DanBritt.
Research Interest
The physical properties of asteroids and meteorites, The strength of asteroidal materials Asteroid surface properties and surface evolution, Experimental and computational investigation of space weathering processes, Development of simulants for asteroidal materials, Experimental investigations of thermal degradation of asteroidal materials, Effects of space weathering on volatile-rich asteroids.
Publications
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Keller H. U., Britt D. T, Buratti B. J., and Thomas N. (2005) In Situ Observations of Cometary Nuclei. Comets II (M. Festou, H. U. Keller, H. Weaver Eds)University of Arizona Press, pp. 211–222.
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Sears D, Allen C, Britt D, Brownlee D, Franzen M, Gefert L, Gorovan S, Pieters C, Preble J, Scheeres D, Scott E (2004) The Hera mission: multiple near-earth asteroid sample return. Advances in Space Research 34, 2270-2275.
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Sears D.W.G., Allen C.C., Bell M.S., Bogard D., Britt D., Brownlee D.E., Chapman C., Clark B.C., Dissley R., Franzen M.A., Goldstein J., Nishiizumi K., Nyquist L., Pieters C.M., Scheeres D., Scott E.R.D., Treiman A. (2004) The Hera near-Earth asteroid sample return mission: science requirements of the sample collector. Advances in Space Research 34, 2276-2280.
