Is planet earth at risk of a minor asteroid strike, or complete obliteration? What are asteroids, anyway? Community College of Aurora's Sherlin Lecture in Astronomy and Space Science will present "Near-Earth Asteroids: The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good" by Dr. Daniel Durda of the Southwest Research Institute of Boulder.

Free and open to the public, the event will be held Friday, Oct. 30, from 7:30-9 p.m. in the college's Fine Arts Building Forum,16000 E. CentreTech Parkway in Aurora.

Durda is a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder and an adjunct professor in the Department of Sciences at Front Range Community College. His research interests include the collisional and dynamical evolution of main-belt and near-Earth asteroids, Kuiper belt comets, and interplanetary dust; airborne observations of planetary occultations; the formation and observational detection of asteroidal satellites; and the size distribution of dust from the catastrophic disruption of meteoritic samples.

In addition to his career as a scientist and author of numerous scientific publications, Durda is a certified scuba diver, cave diver, instrument rated pilot, and an accomplished creator of space art.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States. Its mission is to benefit government, industry, and the public through innovative science and technology.

Following the lecture, CCA's observatory will be open for free public viewing. Members of the community are invited to come out and see various deep sky objects from the only public observatory in Aurora.