Mike Brown, professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, will speak at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the Timken Great Hall, located in the Kent State Stark Professional Education and Conference Center.

Brown, a guest of this year’s Stark campus 2008-09 Featured Speakers Series, will present “How I Killed Pluto, and Why It Had It Coming.”

Brown specializes in the discovery and study of bodies at the edge of the solar system. He is best known for discovering Eris, the object in our solar system that eventually led to the demotion of Pluto to a dwarf planet.

The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are required and can be obtained by calling the Stark campus Conference Center at 330-244-3300. Only overflow tickets remain.

-Mary Jo Spletzer