Zdenek Sekanina Zdenek Sekanina Zdenek Sekanina (born 12 June 1936, Mladá Boleslav, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic)) is a Czech-American astronomer and scientist. In 1959, Sekanina started to study astronomy at Charles University in Prague, where he was graduated in 1963. Since 1980, he has been working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His main areas of professional study are meteors and interplanetary dust as well as the study of comets. In the course of his investigations, he dealt with Halley's comet, the Tunguska event, as well as the break-up and impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 on Jupiter. He was involved in the data
Comet Hale–Bopp and it was visible to the naked eye for twice as long as the previous record-holder. It was also brighter than magnitude 0 for eight weeks, longer than any other recorded comet. Gene Shoemaker and his wife Carolyn, both famous for co-discovering comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, were involved in a car crash after photographing the comet. Gene died in the crash and his ashes were sent to the Moon aboard NASA's "Lunar Prospector" mission along with an image of Hale–Bopp, "the last comet that the Shoemakers observed together". Comet Hale–Bopp Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a comet that was