Carolyn Shoemaker is an American astronomer who once held the record for the most comet discoveries. By 1994, Carolyn had 32 comet discoveries to her credit, the prominent among them was the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.Carolyn Shoemaker was born in Gallup, New Mexico in 1929. Carolyn studied history, political science, and English literature. She married Eugene Shoemaker, a geologist who was also interested in astronomy, in 1951. Her interest in astronomy and geology began only after her marriage. At the age of 51, after her children had grown up and moved out, Carolyn began helping her husband search for asteroids and comets, at California Institute of Technology, California, and the Palomar Observatory, San Diego, California. She was lauded for her exceptional eye for detail in discovering objects in near-Earth space.
Despite her relative inexperience and lack of a science degree, in 1980, Carolyn became a visiting scientist with the astrogeology branch of the United States Geological Survey Both Carolyn and Gene were on the staff of Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff Arizona
Between the 1980s and the 1990s, Shoemaker used images taken by telescopes at the Palomar Observatory to find objects which moved against the background of fixed stars Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker teamed with astronomer David H. Levy, and identified a fragmented comet orbiting Jupiter on March 24, 1993. It was named Shoemaker-Levy 9. Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart in July 1992 and collided with Jupiter in July 1994. It was a significant event and much-followed by scientists and enthusiasts on Earth as it provided the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects. In 1997, Gene Shoemaker died in an accident. Carolyn, who survived with severe injuries, continued to work at the Lowell Observatory post recovery. As of 2002, Shoemaker had been credited with discovering or co-discovering 32 comets and over 800 asteroids. The Hildian asteroid 4446 Carolyn, discovered by colleague Edward Bowell at Lowell Observatory in 1985, was named in her honour.
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