Carolyn S. Shoemaker

Carolyn Jean Spellman Shoemaker (* June 24, 1929 in Gallup, New Mexico) is an American astronomer.

It is one of the discoverers of the comet Shoemaker- Levy 9 and was the wife of the deceased on 18 July 1997 geologists and astronomers Eugene Shoemaker Impaktforschers. She has discovered 32 comets and is now already the most successful " comet hunter ".

Your career in astronomy began in 1980 when she sought with her husband Eugene Shoemaker and David H. Levy at Palomar Observatory for asteroids and comets that cross the Earth's orbit. She used a stereoscope to examine films that were exposed to the 46 -cm Schmidt telescope for objects that moved against the background of fixed stars. Your first comet she found him 1983. The search program in 1997, after the death of Eugene Shoemaker, set.

Until 2002, Carolyn Shoemaker were attributed to the discoveries of 32 comets and more than 800 asteroids. From the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff (Arizona ) and of the Saint Mary's University Halifax, they each received an honorary doctorate in 1996 and the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA. Together with her husband she was also awarded in 1998 with the James Craig Watson Medal.