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Astronomy Cast Episode 341, the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, with Sandy Springman.

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Kane, I'm the publisher of University, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gay, a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and the director of CosmoQuest,

and our special guest star, Sandy Springman, from the Aerociebo Observatory.

Hello Pamela.

Hello, and welcome, Sandy. It's great to have you on finally.

I'm pleased as punched to be here.

Awesome. So, who are you and what do you do, Sandy?

I work at Aerociebo Observatory. We find asteroids before they find us.

So my job is junior planetary defender and space rock sapper.

You saw your honest title. Are you like really a space, an earth defender?

My business card right now says asteroid radar astronomer and writer.

But on LinkedIn, I think it says junior planetary defender and space rock blaster, which is what my officemate has as well.

So, I guess now that he's a research scientist, he's just a space rock blaster.

Yeah, I think you need to lose the junior, just switch to space rock blaster.

And that's really just a glorified way of saying data, analysis, analyst, and observing support.

So what we do is we have the world's most powerful planetary radar system in our backyard.

We have a thousand foot diameter that's 305 meter for metric friends telescope.

It sits in a giant sinkhole in the hills at the observatory and we send radio waves out to asteroids and they bounce off.

So most astronomy is done and you rely on the benevolence of the universe for your photons, for your signal.

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