The
New York Times: Heidi B. Hammel, 48, an M.I.T.-educated
planetary astronomer, has two professional missions. The first
is to learn everything possible about those icy planets,
Neptune and Uranus. The second is to communicate knowledge
about space to ordinary citizens. In 1994, when the
Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crashed into Jupiter, Dr. Hammel was the
leader of the ground team that analyzed photos of the event
from the Hubble Space Telescope. At the same time, she was the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration's public face,
explaining the science to television audiences worldwide. We
spoke at her home in Ridgefield, Conn., and later by telephone.
An edited version of the conversations follows.
