Svetlana Gerasimenko

Svetlana Gerasimenko

Svetlana Gerasimenko
Native name Светла́на Ива́новна Герасиме́нко
Світлана Іванівна Герасименко
Born Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko
(1945-02-23) 23 February 1945
Baryshivka, Kiev Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Residence Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Citizenship Soviet UnionTajikistan
Fields Astronomy
Alma mater Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Known for Comet discovery

Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko (Russian: Светла́на Ива́новна Герасиме́нко; Ukrainian: Світлана Іванівна Герасименко) is a Soviet and Tajikistani astronomer of Ukrainian[1] origin and discoverer of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Discovery of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

On 11 September 1969 Gerasimenko while working at the Alma-Ata Astrophysical Institute, near Almaty, the then-capital city of Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union photographed the comet 32P/Comas Solà using a 50-cm Maksutov telescope.[2]

After returning to her home institute, Klim Ivanovych Churyumov of the Kiev National University's Astronomical Observatory examined this photograph and found a cometary object near the edge of the plate, but assumed that this was Comas Solà.[3][4] On 22 October, about a month after the photograph was taken, he discovered that the object could not be Comas Solà, because it was 2-3 degrees off the expected position. Further scrutiny produced a faint image of Comas Solà at its expected position on the plate, thus proving that the other object was a different comet.[3] By looking through all the material collected they found this new object on four more plates, dated 9 and 21 September.[4]

Honors

Named after her

References and notes

  1. "Герасименко: я открыла комету случайно". Retrieved 4 October 2016. Я украинка по отцу, полячка по маме, но осознаю себя украинкой.
  2. "Klim Ivanovich Churyumov". International Astronomical Union. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  3. 1 2 Kronk, Gary W.; et al. (2010). "67P/1969 R1 (Churyumov-Gerasimenko)". Cometography: A Catalog of Comets; Volume 5: 1960-1982. Cambridge University Press. pp. 241–245. ISBN 052187226X.
  4. 1 2 "Svetlana Gerasimenko - co-discoverer of comet 67P". European Space Agency.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.