Dante Lauretta (b. 1970) is a professor of Planetary Science and Cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and Director of the UA's Southwest Meteorite Center. Lauretta was the recipient of the 2002 Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society, and the 1995 Nininger Meteorite Award. He is coauthor (with Marvin Killgore) of A Color Atlas of Meteorites in Thin Section (2005). Dr. Lauretta is known for his experimental work on the formation of iron-bearing sulfides in the solar nebula. He also worked on the cosmochemical behavior of various elements, such as mercury, boron and beryllium in meteorites.[1]. Lauretta is deputy Principal Investigator for the OSIRIS asteroid sample-recovery project, which hopes to sample Asteroid 1999 RQ36 in 2017 [2]. Asteroid 5819 Lauretta was named in his honor.[1]
