JPL engineer will speak to astronomy club

The Ventura County Astronomical Society will hold its monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. Fri., March 21 in the multipurpose room at Mesa Union School, 3901 Mesa School Road in Somis.

The speaker will be Dr. Marc Rayman, who has been with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1986. Rayman's presentation is titled "Now Flying Through a Solar System Near You: The Dawn Mission to the Asteroid Belt."

Rayman is the mission manager and chief engineer on Dawn, a mission to study two of the largest unexplored worlds in the solar system. He has received several honors, including two Exceptional Achievement Medals from NASA. He is also the only person to have won both the Exceptional Technical Excellence Award and the Exceptional Leadership Award.

For more information, call (805) 642-5166.