Asteroid specialist and doctoral candidate Alessondra "Sondy" Springmann. Credit: MIT photo by Eric Schmiedle

In this episode of the SpaceGeeks podcast, Dan Leone talks to Alessondra “Sondy” Springmann: A journeywoman planetary scientist who stumbled into astronomy in college and followed a winding road that has led her to NASA’s Osiris-Rex asteroid sample-return mission.

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SHOW NOTES:

Sondy’s website, with many, many more details about her time at Arecibo. And cat pictures.

The official website for the Arecibo radio observatory (which is run by the National Science Foundation, not NASA).

The telescope that hooked Sondy.

Gastroenteritis, if you didn’t know.

Asteroid specialist and doctoral candidate Alessondra "Sondy" Springmann at the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico. Credit: Alessondra Springmann
Asteroid specialist and doctoral candidate Alessondra “Sondy” Springmann at the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico. Credit: Alessondra Springmann
Asteroid specialist and doctoral candidate Alessondra “Sondy” Springmann at the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico. Credit: Alessondra Springmann

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Dan Leone is a SpaceNews staff writer, covering NASA, NOAA and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in public communications from the American University in Washington.