Ukrainian astronomer and famous comet hunter Klim Churyumov dies at 79

  • 8 years ago
The world of astronomy has lost one of its stars.

Soviet-Ukrainian astronomer Klim Churyumov has died aged 79.

He is the man who discovered comet 67P -Churyumov-Gerasimenko with astronomer Svetlana Gerasimenko in 1969.

It was the comet which the Rosetta space mission successfully landed its philae lander on in 2014.

IamComet67P RIP prof. #Churyumov. Your name will stay in the memory of #Space #Rosetta fans. It was a honour to get an interview with you pic.twitter.com/c8aK0ufgAV— stroclaudio (@RosmiNow) October 15, 2016


Director of the Kyiv planetarium, he has authored 800 scientific papers as well as four text books.

He had been one of the contenders for a collective Nobel prize this year.

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