Dr. Scott Sandford is a member of Ames' Astrophysics Branch and is a co-leader (with Louis J. Allamandola) of Ames' Astrochemistry Laboratory. He has extensive experience in the fields of meteoritics. He is an editor of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science and has helped find many meteorites in Antarctica, some of them quite famous [or perhaps infamous is a better word]. Click here to see some pictures from his 1998-1999 trip to the Graves Nunataks in Antarctica. Dr, Sandford also does extensive work in the areas of laboratory astrophysics and astrochemistry, and infrared astronomy (ground-based and airborne). He has used the combined techniques of infrared astronomy and laboratory astrophysics to identify a number of new molecular species in space, many of interest exobiology (for example, organic compounds in the diffuse ISM). Current laboratory interests include the study of the physical, chemical, and stereoscopic properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and astrophysical ice analogs relevant to interstellar, cometary, and planetary environments. If you would like to know more about how Scott became a scientist, consider visiting his Live from the Stratosphere biography page. Click here if you'd like to know more about his hobbies, fiction, and humorous writing, etc.

Dr. Sandford is also a Co-Investigator on the Stardust Discovery Mission. The purpose of this mission is to collect a sample from a comet and return it to Earth for study! The Stardust spacecraft was launched on February 7, 1999 and it will intercept the comet, Comet P/Wild 2, in December of 2004. The collected sample will be returned to Earth for study in January of 2006. Dr. Sandford is also assisting with testing of the sample return capsule filter for the GENESIS Discovery Mission.

Also, visit the Astrochemistry Laboratory's amateur astronomy page. It contains astrophotos of Hale-Bopp, the Moon, the Galactic Plane, etc. taken by Scott and other folks associated with the Astrochemistry Laboratory.

Here is a fairly current list of Dr. Sandford's major publications.

You can reach Dr. Sandford by phone at (650) 604-6849, by fax at (650) 604-6779, electronically at ssandford@mail.arc.nasa.gov, or via snail mail at Scott Sandford, Mail Stop 245-6, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000. Please feel free to contact him if you would like to receive a reprint of any of his publications.