Carolyn Shoemaker

Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker was an American astronomer and a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets and more than 500 asteroids. Having earned degrees in history, political science and English literature, she had little interest in science until she met and married geologist Eugene Shoemaker. Despite her relative inexperience and lack of a science degree, California Institute of Technology had no objection to her joining Gene's team there as a research assistant. She had demonstrated stereoscopic vision, a particularly valuable quality for looking for objects in near-Earth space.