Carolyn Shoemaker was an astronomer who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and set a record for comets discovered.Shoemaker didn’t have scientific training, but she learned her work by working side by side with her husband, Eugene Shoemaker, a planetary geologist.
The two used telescopes to scan and photograph the night sky, then Shoemaker worked with those photographs to identify comets, asteroids, and other minor bodies in space.
She set a record for the most comets discovered, having identified 32 by 1994. Among her discoveries was Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with Jupiter a year after her 1993 identification of the comet.
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