Lyudmila Ivanovna Chernykh (russian: Людми́ла Ива́новна Черны́х, June 13, 1935 in Shuya, Ivanovo Oblast – July 28, 2017) was a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n-born

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

, wife and colleague of Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, and a prolific

discoverer of minor planets This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 nu ...

Professional career

In 1959 she graduated from Irkutsk State Pedagogical Institute (now Pedagogical Institute of Irkutsk State University). Between 1959 and 1963 she worked in the Time and Frequency Laboratory of the All-Union Research Institute of Physico-Technical and Radiotechnical Measurements in Irkutsk, where she did astrometrical observations for the Time Service. Between 1964 and 1998 she was a scientific worker at the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

(

Russian Academy of Science The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

since 1991), working at the observation base of the institute at the

Crimean Astrophysical Observatory The Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO, obs. code: 095) is located at Nauchnij research campus, near the Central Crimean city of Bakhchysarai, on the Crimean peninsula. CrAO is often called simply by its location and campus name, ...

(CrAO) in Nauchnyy settlement on the

Crimean peninsula Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

. In 1998 she was promoted to senior scientific worker at CrAO. The Minor Planet Center (MPC) credits her with the discovery of 267 numbered

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''mino ...

s, which she made at CrAO between 1966 and 1992. Several of these discoveries she made in collaboration with her husband and with

Tamara Smirnova Tamara Mikhaylovna Smirnova (russian: Тама́ра Миха́йловна Смирно́ва; 1935–2001) was a Soviet/Russian astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets and comets. Career From 1966 to 1988, Smirnova was a staff member of t ...

Honors

The asteroid

2325 Chernykh 2325 Chernykh, provisional designation , is a dark Themistian asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 25 September 1979, by Czech astronomer Antonín Mrkos at the Klet Observatory in ...

, discovered in 1979 by Czech astronomer

Antonín Mrkos Antonín Mrkos () (27 January 1918, Střemchoví – 29 May 1996, Prague) was a Czech astronomer. Biography Mrkos entered the University in Brno in 1938. His studies were interrupted by the onset of World War II, and in 1945 he became a staff ...

, was named in her and her husband's honour. The official naming citation was published by the MPC on 1 June 1981 ().

List of discovered minor planets

Two of her notable discoveries are

2127 Tanya 2127 Tanya, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 40 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 29 May 1971, by Russian astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophy ...

– named after Russian child diarist

Tanya Savicheva Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva (russian: Татья́на Никола́евна Са́вичева), commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva (23 January 1930 – 1 July 1944), was a Russian child diarist who endured the siege of Leningrad duri ...

, and

2212 Hephaistos 2212 Hephaistos (1978 SB) is an Apollo asteroid and a NEO discovered on 27 September 1978 by L. I. Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. It is named after the Greek god Hephaestus. It is the largest member of the Hephaistos asteroid ...

, a

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...

of the

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

group of asteroids.

References

External links

Людмила Ивановна Черных

Parajanov Asteroid discovered by L. Chernykh
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chernykh, Lyudmila 1935 births 2017 deaths Discoverers of asteroids * People from Shuya Russian women scientists Soviet astronomers Women astronomers