Scott Sandford

Scott Sandford is an American astronomer and NASA scientist. He has studied meteorites and other specimens that travel through outer space. Sandford has also written for the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

Education Sandford attended the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology and Washington University in St. Louis.

Research and career Sandford uses a combination of methods of using infrared astronomy and laboratory astrophysics to find "a number of new molecular species in space, many of interest to astrobiology". His current studies in a laboratory are "of the physical, chemical, and stereoscopic properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as the astrophysical ice analogs relevant to interstellar, cometary, and planetary environments". He has been a Co-Investigator for "sample return missions".

Sandford wrote, and was the co-author of, numerous approved grants and peer-reviewed papers. He has studied meteorites and other specimens that travel through outer space. He is a part of NASA Review Panels and he became an associate editor for Meteoritics & Planetary Science in 1995. He used fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to compare a Granny Smith apple with a Sunkist orange. Sandford concluded with, "This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future".