I enjoyed all kinds of subjects in school, including various sciences, mathematics, music, and literature.

What encouraged you to take your interest in physics and turn it into a career? This, combined with the new fantastic images of exotic moons of Jupiter and Saturn being released at the time from the Voyager probe mission, made me very curious about the universe, and made me want to explore it. I was fond of exploring the natural world around me, and that included loving our nightly family strolls down the country lane where we could see the stars filling the sky. I grew up on a family farm in the rural Ozark hills of Arkansas, in the central part of the U.S. I was surrounded by nature: meadows, hills, animals, streams, ponds, lakes, and a dark night sky. Jennifer will be in town later this month to take part in the World Science Festival, so we jumped at the chance to pick her brain about her cool job, what scientific advances we can expect in the near future and if aliens exist.Ĭan you tell us where your love for the night sky and the stars first originated? This means that Jennifer is an expert in concepts and areas that are far beyond our mental grasp – the star-forming regions of our galaxy, interstellar gas clouds, astronomical bodies and – potentially – extra-terrestrial life. Jennifer is a senior astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre and was also previously the head of Goddard’s Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics. Jennifer Wiseman can comfortably say that she’s accomplished both.

Even fewer can say that they work closely on the Hubble Space Telescope project. Not many people in the world can say that they discovered an asteroid.

Science impacts nearly every aspect of modern life, from agriculture, environment, and medicine to communications, exploration and, hopefully, a sense of responsibility, wonder and awe. Share Jennifer Wiseman, astrophysicist, NASA

Undiscovered Country by Jennifer Gold