Amy Mainzer
Amy Mainzer (born January 2, 1974 ) is an American astronomer (infrared astronomy and related instruments, near-earth objects).
Mainzer studied physics at Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in 1996 and astronomy at Caltech with a master's degree in 2000 and received her doctorate in astronomy in 2003 from the University of California, Los Angeles . She does research at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory .
Mainzer is Deputy Project Scientist at the Infrared Space Telescope Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Principal Investigator for the NEOWISE project, which will be carried out from 2010 onwards, to research small objects within Earth orbit. NEOWISE found numerous new near-Earth objects such as comets and asteroids, including those that could potentially be dangerous to Earth. She proposed the follow-up project Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), an infrared space telescope that is supposed to find and examine potentially dangerous asteroids and other objects within Earth's orbit.
She was also involved in the Spitzer Space Telescope .
She is known from popular science television shows such as Secrets of the Universe .
The asteroid (234750) Amymainzer was named after her.
Web links
- Website at JPL
- Amy Mainzer in theInternet Movie Database(English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mainzer, Amy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 2nd January 1974 |