Carolyn S. Shoemaker
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Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker (born 1929) is a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and wife to Eugene Shoemaker.
Shoemaker holds the record for most comets discovered by an individual. She started her astronomical career in 1980, searching for Earth-crossing asteroids and comets at Caltech and the Palomar Observatory.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Shoemaker used film taken at the wide-field telescope at Palomar, combined with a stereoscope, to find objects which moved against the background of fixed stars.
As of 2002, Shoemaker has discovered 32 comets and over 800 asteroids. She received an honorary doctorate from the Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, Arizona and the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1996.
External link
- USGS page about Carolyn Shoemaker (http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/CarolynShoemaker/) (also used as a reference)