Lecturer: Amy Mainzer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Dr. Amy Mainzer is a Senior Research Scientist at NASAís Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her scientific interests include asteroids, comets, astronomical telescope and camera design, and science education. She served as the deputy project scientist for NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, an Earth-orbiting telescope designed to survey the entire sky in heat-sensitive infrared wavelengths. Following successful completion of its prime mission, this telescope was renamed NEOWISE and given a new mission to characterize asteroids and comets; Mainzer is the principal investigator. She is also the principal investigator of the proposed Near-Earth Object Camera mission, which would carry out a comprehensive survey of asteroids and comets using a dedicated space telescope. Prior to joining the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2003, she designed and built the fine guidance sensor for NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope as an engineer at Lockheed Martin. She currently serves as the curriculum consultant and on-camera host for the PBS Kids series Ready Jet Go!, an animated and live action children’s show aimed at teaching space and Earth science to kids as young as 4 years old.
Topic: Searching for asteroid targets
Recommended Readings:
Initial Orbit Determination: The Pragmatist’s Point of View (click here to download)
The Pan-STARRS Synthetic Solar System Model: A Tool for Testing and Efficiency Determination of the Moving Object Processing System (click here to download)
Report of the Near-Earth Object Science Definition Team, 2017 (click here to download)
Recorded talk: