The woman who hunts asteroids for a living: ‘I owe my job to a Bruce Willis film’
by Tim Lewis from on (#2GBPJ)
Space physicist Dr Carrie Nugent talks about the chances of Earth being hit by a giant asteroid - and why she owes her job to a Bruce Willis movie
Dr Carrie Nugent is a 32-year-old geo- and space physicist who specialises in asteroids. Her new book Asteroid Hunters - published by TED Books and accompanied by a talk - answers all our questions on these small, mysterious objects that travel between the planets. Her day job is spotting and tracking asteroids as part of a Nasa-funded research team at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech in Pasadena. She is also the host of a weekly podcast called Spacepod, in which she interviews a space explorer about our universe.
Our team has named a couple of asteroids: one after Malala Yousafzai and one after Rosa Parks
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