Eugene Merle Shoemaker

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Eugene Merle Shoemaker

Eugene Merle Shoemaker (or Gene Shoemaker) (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997) was one of the founders of the fields of planetary science

Planetary science

Planetary science, also known as planetology and closely related to planetary astronomy, is the science of planets, or planetary systems, and the solar system....
. Born in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
, he is best known for co-discovering the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

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Eugene Merle Shoemaker (or Gene Shoemaker) (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997) was one of the founders of the fields of planetary science

Planetary science

Los Angeles, California

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Scientific contributions

Astrogeology and Apollo

For his Ph.D. at Princeton

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
(1960), Dr. Shoemaker studied the impact dynamics of Barringer Meteor Crater, located near Winslow, Arizona

Winslow, Arizona

Winslow is a city in Navajo County, Arizona, Arizona, United States. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 9,931....
. To understand the dynamics, Shoemaker inspected craters that remained after underground atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site

Nevada Test Site

The Nevada Test Site is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles northwest of the City of Las Vegas, Nevada, near ....
at Yucca Flats. He found a ring of ejected material that included shocked quartz

Shocked quartz

Shocked quartz is a form of quartz that has a microscopic structure that is different from normal quartz. Under intense pressure , the crystalline structure of quartz will be deformed along planes inside the crystal....
(coesite

Coesite

Coesite is a form of silicon dioxide siliconoxygen2 that is formed when very high pressure and moderately high temperature are applied to quartz....
), a form of quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust . It is made up of a Crystal structure of silica tetrahedra. Quartz has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale and a density of 2.65 g/cm?....
that has a microscopically unique structure caused by intense pressure.

Dr. Shoemaker helped pioneer the field of astrogeology by founding the Astrogeology Research Program

Astrogeology Research Program

The USGS Astrogeology Research Program has a rich history of participation in space exploration efforts and planetary mapping, starting in 1963 when the Flagstaff Science Center was established by Eugene Merle Shoemaker to provide lunar geologic mapping and assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon....
of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1961 at Flagstaff, Arizona

Flagstaff, Arizona

Flagstaff is a city located in northern Arizona, in the southwestern United States. In July 2006, the city's estimated population was 58,213. The population of the Metropolitan Statistical Area was estimated at 127,450 in 2007....
and he was its first director. He was prominently involved in the Lunar Ranger

Ranger program

The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon....
missions to the Moon, which showed that the Moon was covered with a wide size range of impact craters. Dr. Shoemaker was also involved in the training of the American astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a List of human spaceflight programs to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
s. He was set to be the first geologist to walk on the Moon but was disqualified due to being diagnosed with Addison's disease

Addison's disease

Addison's disease is a rare endocrine disorder in which the adrenal gland doesn't produce enough steroid hormones . It may develop in children and adults, and may occur as the result many underlying causes....
, a disorder of the adrenal gland

Adrenal gland

In mammals, the adrenal glands are the star-shaped endocrine glands that sit on top of the kidneys; their name indicates that position . They are chiefly responsible for regulating the stress response through the biosynthesis of corticosteroids and catecholamines, including cortisol and adrenaline, respectively....
. Shoemaker would train astronauts during field trips to Meteor Crater and Sunset Crater

Sunset Crater

Sunset Crater is a cinder cone located north of Flagstaff, Arizona in U.S. State of Arizona. The crater is within the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument....
near Flagstaff.

Coming to Caltech in 1969, he started a systematic search for Earth orbit-crossing asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
s, which resulted in the discovery of several families of such asteroids, including the Apollo asteroids. Since then, Shoemaker has done more than any other person to advance the idea that sudden geologic changes can arise from asteroid

Asteroid

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with larger body....
s were thought to be remnants of extinct volcanoes – even on the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Dr. Shoemaker received the Barringer Medal

Barringer Medal

The Barringer Medal recognizes outstanding work in the field of impact cratering and/or work that has led to a better understanding of impact phenomena....
in 1984 and a National Medal of Science

National Medal of Science

The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and physics....
in 1992. In 1993, he co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of solar system objects....
. This comet was unique in that it provided the first opportunity for scientists to observe the planetary impact of a comet. Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994. The resulting impact caused a massive "scar" on the face of Jupiter. Most scientists at the time were dubious of whether there would even be any evident markings on the planet.

Death

Dr. Shoemaker spent much of his later years searching for and finding several previously unnoticed or undiscovered meteor craters around the world. It was during one such expedition that Dr. Shoemaker died in a car accident while on the Tanami Road northwest of Alice Springs, Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
in July 1997. On July 31, 1999, some of his ashes were carried to the Moon

Space burial

Space burial is a burial procedure in which a small sample of the cremation ashes of the deceased are placed in a capsule the size of a tube of lipstick and are launched into space using a rocket....
by the Lunar Prospector

Lunar Prospector

The Lunar Prospector mission was the third selected by NASA for full development and construction as part of the Discovery Program. At a cost of $62.8 million, the 19-month mission was designed for a low polar orbit investigation of the Moon, including mapping of surface composition and possible polar ice deposits, measurements of magnetic...
space probe in a capsule designed by Carolyn Porco

Carolyn Porco

Carolyn Porco is an United States Planetary science known for her work in the exploration of the outer solar system, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager program missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s....
. To date, he is the only person to have been buried on the Moon.

The brass foil wrapping of Dr. Shoemaker's memorial capsule is inscribed with images of Comet Hale-Bopp

Comet Hale-Bopp

Comet Hale-Bopp was arguably the most widely observed comet of the twentieth century, and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811....
, the Barringer Crater, and a quotation from Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a Shakespearean tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "Star-crossed" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding families....
reading

"And, when he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

Bibliography

Kring, D.A., (2007) "Guidebook to the Geology of Barringer Meteorite Crater, Arizona (a.k.a. Meteor Crater)". Lunar and Planetary Institute contribution No. 1355

External links

Deadly Impact: Deadly Impact National Geographic videos