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Planetary Society Honors Eugene Shoemaker



                 Planetary Society Honors Eugene Shoemaker with
                         Comet and Asteroid Discovery

                   Grant Program Named for Astronomer Shoemaker
                    Supports Searches for Potentially Dangerous
                                Near-Earth Objects

                  One year ago today, this web site announced that
                  the Planetary Society had launched its Near-Earth
                  Object (NEO) Grant Program to help discover the
                  comets and asteroids known to be in our planet's
                  celestial vicinity. Since then, this ongoing
                  program has been dubbed the Gene Shoemaker
                  Near-Earth Object Grants -- to honor the late
                  comet and asteroid discoverer -- and the program
                  has given $35,000 to researchers from around the
                  world who search for asteroids and comets with
                  orbits close enough to Earth to pose a potential
                  hazard to our planet.

                  The first four recipients of the grants are now
                  putting their grants to work in NEO detection
                  efforts in the United States, Russia, and
                  Australia.

                  In the US, Walter Wild in Chicago, Illinois, and
                  Bill Holiday in Corpus Christi, Texas lead
                  searches that involve amateur astronomers. Wild,
                  an astronomer at the University of Chicago, leads
                  a group of amateur astronomers who are conducting
                  a NEO search from Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.
                  Amateur astronomer Holiday is using his grant to
                  upgrade his home-built rotating roof observatory.

                  Kirill Zamarashkin is the project coordinator for
                  a joint Russian-Ukrainian search program at the
                  Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. This research
                  team has used its Gene Shoemaker grant money to
                  help construct the first element of an automatic
                  complex to search for NEOs.

                  Based in Loomberah, New South Wales in Australia,
                  Gordon Garradd is using his Gene Shoemaker NEO
                  Grant to complete a 45-centimeter (18-inch)
                  Newtonian telescope and to acquire a larger,
                  higher-grade imaging sensor (a CCD, or charge
                  coupled device).

                  A recent report of Earth's impending close
                  encounter with an asteroid (featured in an earlier
                  headline article on this web site) emphasized the
                  importance of detecting the comets and asteroids
                  whose orbits might intersect Earth's. Astronomers
                  estimate that there are several thousand NEOs
                  larger than one kilometer and 150,000 to perhaps
                  100 million larger than 100 meters in size.

                  While various astronomical groups and NASA
                  advisory committees have made strong
                  recommendations to accelerate discovery of these
                  asteroids, government support for NEO search
                  programs remains very modest. Thus, the Planetary
                  Society's Gene Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grants
                  help fill this funding gap.

                  The Planetary Society launched its Near-Earth
                  Object Grant Program to increase the rate of
                  discovery and to permit wider participation by
                  amateur observers; observers in developing
                  countries; and professional astronomers who, with
                  seed funding, could greatly increase the potential
                  of their programs to contribute significantly to
                  the search. The Society accepts applications for
                  these grants continuously.

                  To apply for a Gene Shoemaker Near-Earth Object
                  Grant, read the guidelines and fill out the
                  application form, which are provided on this web
                  site:

                  http://planetary.org/NEO/neo-guidelines.html