35 Quotes by Carrie Nugent

The basic method to find asteroids hasn't changed much in hundreds of years. So asteroids in a telescope look just like stars with one exception: They move with time.

There's been a lot of really great intensive research into earthquakes, but we can't predict an earthquake down to the day. We can't predict where a hurricane is going to be a month in advance.

The best thing to do is to study these asteroids so we know the range of parameters we would have to deal with and also to find them so we have as much time as possible to prepare.

I think the public perception about asteroids is that they're kind of metaphors for acts of God, the fact that we have no control over the universe. They're always seen as these uncontrollable events. But when you look at the science, they're actually the exact opposite.

I think Dawn has done an amazing job showing that asteroids aren't just hunks of rock. They're worlds - they're places an astronaut can explore. I think the Rosetta mission also did an amazing job of that.

People have discovered asteroids in the Main Belt that outgas like comets, and things on cometary orbits that no longer outgas - that don't have tails. We're finding all of these unique cases.

When I tell people I'm a space scientist studying asteroids, they sometimes assume I'm a super-smart math whiz. The kind of person who skipped a bunch of grades and went to college when they were sixteen. Although I am good at math, school was difficult for me, and I didn't get straight A's.

Becoming a scientist is a long journey, and at every step, I found projects that were exciting, motivating me to continue. My path was not straightforward - when I began studying physics in college, I had no idea I would end up studying asteroids; in fact, I never took an astronomy class.

I love studying asteroids because they are relatively simple, just rocks in space. They can be understood with physics and described with elegant equations. For the most part, they are serene celestial bodies.