Svetlana Gerasimenko

Svetlana Gerasimenko
Svetlana Gerasimenko
Native name	Світлана Іванівна Герасименко
Born	Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko (1945-02-23) 23 February 1945 Baryshivka, Kiev Oblast, Ukrainian SSR
Residence	Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Citizenship	Soviet Union Tajikistan
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), born 23 February 1945 in Baryshivka, Kiev Oblast, is a Soviet Ukrainian and Tajikistani astronomer.

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 50-cm Maksutov telescope.

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. 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. By looking through all the material collected they found this new object on four more plates, dated 9 and 21 September.

Honors

Named after her

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