Svetlana Gerasimenko

Svetlana Gerasimenko
Светлана Герасименко Світлана Герасименко
Born	Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko (1945-02-23) 23 February 1945 (age 79) Baryshivka, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Citizenship	Soviet Union → Tajikistan
Alma mater	Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Known for	Comet discovery
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy

Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko (Russian: Светлана Ивановна Герасименко; Ukrainian: Світлана Іванівна Герасименко; born 1945) is a Soviet and Tajikistani astronomer origin and discoverer of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Early life

Gerasimenko was born in the Ukrainian SSR in 1945. She is an ethnic Ukrainian; her father was Ukrainian and her mother Polish.[1]

Discovery of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

Main articles: Rosetta (spacecraft) and Philae (spacecraft)

See also: Timeline of Rosetta spacecraft

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 she returned to her home institute, Klim Ivanovych Churyumov of the Kyiv 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

• Periodic comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
• Minor planet 3945 Gerasimenko

See also

• Timeline of women in science

References and notes

1. "Герасименко: я открыла комету случайно". 17 November 2014. 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. 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 978-0521872263.
4. "Svetlana Gerasimenko - co-discoverer of comet 67P". European Space Agency.