Lenka Kotková (''

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

'' Šarounová; born 26 July 1973) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

and a discoverer of minor planets. She works at Observatoř Ondřejov (Ondřejov Observatory), located near

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. Besides numerous

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

asteroids she also discovered Mars-crosser asteroid 9671 Hemera and Hilda family asteroid 21804 Václavneumann. Lenka Kotková studied

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

at the faculty of

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

of the

Charles University in Prague Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest universities in the world in continuous operation, the oldest university north of the ...

. Her tasks at the Astronomical institute AV ČR in Ondřejov are primarily the development of databases, spectroscopical and photometric observation, and data processing. During her work at the department of inter planetary matter her main role was the observation of near-earth asteroids, along with Petr Pravec and Peter Kušnirák she identified a large proportion of known binary asteroids. In the same time period she discovered or co-discovered over one hundred asteroids. At the present time Lenka Kotková works in the stellar department as an observant with a two-metre Ondřejov telescope. In the year 2000 she received the ''Zdeněk Kvíz Award'' of the ''Czech Astronomical Society'' for significant work in the research of

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...

s. The asteroid 10390 Lenka, discovered by her colleagues Petr Pravec and Marek Wolf in 1997, is named after her. The asteroid 60001 Adélka, discovered by her in 1999, is named after her daughter, while 7897 Bohuška, discovered by her in 1995, is named after her mother.

List of discovered minor planets

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kotkova, Lenka 1973 births Czech astronomers Discoverers of asteroids * Living people Women astronomers People from Prague-West District Charles University alumni