Eugene Shoemaker

Eugene Merle Shoemaker was an American geologist who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy, a comet that struck Jupiter in July 1994 in an impact televised around the world. He also studied terrestrial impact craters such as Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and together with Edward Chao provided the first conclusive evidence of its origin as an impact crater, and he became the first director of the United States Geological Survey's Astrogeology Research Program.