Eugene Shoemaker is one of the most renowned American geologists and astronomers of the last century. He brought the debate around the origin of Arizona’s Meteor crater to an end, helped pioneer an entirely new field of science and co-discovered one of the most scientifically impactful comets ever found.Until Shoemaker and Chao’s publication on the subject of coesite in 1960, it was accepted by most geologists that meteor crater was formed by an underground explosion brought on by volcanism He was born in California in 1928 and attended the California Institute of Technology at the age of 16, completing a Geology bachelor's degree. He then took only one more year to complete his master’s at Caltech, his thesis being the petrology of Precambrian
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His first stop, earth’s moon. Shoemaker postulated that we could extrapolate our knowledge of earth’s processes to other planets and moons in the solar system. He believed that the earth and moon’s craters were two examples of the same phenomenon. Mapping the moon was something that Eugene did eventually accomplish, however; his larger dream of visiting the moon would have to wait. Shoemaker was diagnosed with Addison’s disease which disqualified him from being an astronaut in the apollo missions. So instead, he used his geological prowess to secure his spot as the head scientist for the Astrogeology branch of the USGS. This position enabled him to plan the scientific portions of the apollo missions and help train the astronauts. He even created mock lunar landing sites on earth by creating terrain similar to what the astronauts would experience. Shoemaker’s persistent attitude toward using geological techniques to understand other planets effectively created the branch of study called planetary geology (Kieffer, …show more content…
He and his wife, Carolyn Shoemaker, began searching for asteroids and comets using the Schmidt telescope located at the Palomar Observatory in California. Together they found 32 comets and over 800 asteroids (Hughes, 2001). Working with a colleague named David Levy they found their most important discovery in the sky, a comet later named “Shoemaker-Levy 9.” This comet had been gravitationally shifted by the planet Jupiter and was set to impact the gas giant on the 16th of July, 1994 (Kerr, 1994). This would be the first time an impact would be seen in real time and many scientists believed there wouldn’t be much of a show. Incredibly, the impacts from the broken comet lasted six days, caused an obvious dark scar on the planet, and a fireball that reached heights of around 3000 kilometers(Martin, 1996). As of 2014, water vapor in the upper atmosphere of the planet was still a detectable sign of the impact (Kieffer, 2015). Shoemaker-Levy 9 not only had impacts on Jupiter, but also political ramifications on the earth. Just four years after seeing the comet’s impact on jupiter and realizing the actual danger these objects pose to humanity, the United States congress directed NASA to find 90% of all near earth objects (Howell,
His first stop, earth’s moon. Shoemaker postulated that we could extrapolate our knowledge of earth’s processes to other planets and moons in the solar system. He believed that the earth and moon’s craters were two examples of the same phenomenon. Mapping the moon was something that Eugene did eventually accomplish, however; his larger dream of visiting the moon would have to wait. Shoemaker was diagnosed with Addison’s disease which disqualified him from being an astronaut in the apollo missions. So instead, he used his geological prowess to secure his spot as the head scientist for the Astrogeology branch of the USGS. This position enabled him to plan the scientific portions of the apollo missions and help train the astronauts. He even created mock lunar landing sites on earth by creating terrain similar to what the astronauts would experience. Shoemaker’s persistent attitude toward using geological techniques to understand other planets effectively created the branch of study called planetary geology (Kieffer, …show more content…
He and his wife, Carolyn Shoemaker, began searching for asteroids and comets using the Schmidt telescope located at the Palomar Observatory in California. Together they found 32 comets and over 800 asteroids (Hughes, 2001). Working with a colleague named David Levy they found their most important discovery in the sky, a comet later named “Shoemaker-Levy 9.” This comet had been gravitationally shifted by the planet Jupiter and was set to impact the gas giant on the 16th of July, 1994 (Kerr, 1994). This would be the first time an impact would be seen in real time and many scientists believed there wouldn’t be much of a show. Incredibly, the impacts from the broken comet lasted six days, caused an obvious dark scar on the planet, and a fireball that reached heights of around 3000 kilometers(Martin, 1996). As of 2014, water vapor in the upper atmosphere of the planet was still a detectable sign of the impact (Kieffer, 2015). Shoemaker-Levy 9 not only had impacts on Jupiter, but also political ramifications on the earth. Just four years after seeing the comet’s impact on jupiter and realizing the actual danger these objects pose to humanity, the United States congress directed NASA to find 90% of all near earth objects (Howell,