Alan Fitzsimmons

Alan Fitzsimmons is an astronomer and professor in the Queen’s University Belfast Astrophysics Research Centre. He is particularly interested in asteroid photometry, cometary size distributions and evolution, and NEO/comet spectroscopy. He is currently a member of the ATLAS Survey, the UK LSST Consortium, the NASA DART Investigation Team, and the ESA HERA  Science Management Board. He was co-chair of the ISSI ‘Oumuamua team, and co-Lead of the Pan-STARRS 1 Inner Solar System Survey. He was also  a  member of the NEOShield-2 project, the ESA Rosetta ground-based support team, and the ISSI teams on Near-Sun Comets and Main-Belt Comets.

Professor Fitzsimmons’ primary research interests are in performing observations of minor bodies in our solar system, comets and asteroids. These studies are generally based on observations performed on UK-supported telescopes in the Canary Islands (ING) and Chile (ESO).

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Watch Alan’s videos:
How many asteroids do we need to find to feel safe?
Where do we find asteroids?
What’s the difference between an asteroid, comet and meteorite?
The importance of science with Dr. Alan Fitzsimmons