The work of a UT professor has been featured in TIME. Josh Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, has helped reveal a rare orbital shift and the density of an asteroid that will pass close to Earth. TIME wrote an article discussing why these findings are important—” Of all the things you don’t give a hoot about, the weight of asteroid 1999 RQ36 would probably rank high. But suppose you knew that the giant space rock is predicted to have eight close — and potentially deadly — encounters with Earth from 2169 to 2199. Suppose you knew that calculating its exact weight and mass will help scientists better track its path, not to mention determine how bad the damage would be if we actually did get clobbered. Would you care then?” asked reporter Jeffrey Kluger.