Carolyn Shoemaker, Hunter of Comets and Asteroids, dies at 92

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He earned a master’s degree in history and political science from Chico State University (now known as California State University, Chico). Eugene Shoemaker and his brother’s former college roommate, Dr. He met her at her older brother’s wedding, where Shoemaker served as best man. They got married a year later, in 1951.

Ms. Shoemaker taught briefly after college, but stopped working when she got married. She accompanied her husband on field trips, cooked for herself and her colleagues, and raised the family’s three children.

Today, professional astronomers use remote-controlled telescopes and digital sensing software. They tend not to shoot all night in remote mountain areas, as the Shoemakers do, by guiding telescopes across the night sky and developing films in their own dark rooms. Yet scientists still rely on the methods Ms. Shoemaker perfected.

Dr. “He and his colleagues have determined how to identify objects in our solar system that we refer to as small bodies, such as comets and asteroids,” Wiseman said. “We still use the technique of searching for the relatively fast transverse movements of comets and asteroids in our own solar system, compared to the slower or more stable positions of the stars.”

Ms. Shoemaker is survived by another daughter, Christine Abanto, in addition to Ms. Salazar; a son, Patrick; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

In 1997, he and Dr. On a trip to Australia to explore the craters, Shoemaker was driving on a remote country road when they turned a corner and collided with an oncoming car. Ms. Shoemaker broke her rotator cuff and broke her rib and ankle. Dr. Shoemaker died instantly.

After her husband’s death, Ms. Shoemaker devoted herself to finishing the research they had started.

“Without Gene, I would never have known the excitement of planetary science,” he wrote in his autobiographical essay. “If it weren’t for me, he’d often say the search for asteroids and comets and subsequent Australian cratering would never have been attempted. Together, we can do more than we can alone.”

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