California Institute of Technology a polynomial algorithm for linear programming known as Karmarkar's algorithm. Other alumni have turned their gaze to the universe. C. Gordon Fullerton (BS 1957, MS 1958) piloted the third Space Shuttle mission. Astronaut (and later, United States Senator) Harrison Schmitt (BS 1957) was the only geologist to have ever walked on the surface of the moon. Astronomer Eugene Merle Shoemaker (BS 1947, MS 1948) co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (a comet which crashed into the planet Jupiter) and was the first person buried on the moon (by having his ashes crashed into the moon). Astronomer George O. Abell (BS 1951, MS
Rings of Saturn has been attributed to a perturbation caused by impact of material from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994. The C Ring is a wide but faint ring located inward of the B Ring. It was discovered in 1850 by William and George Bond, though William R. Dawes and Johann Galle also saw it independently. William Lassell termed it the "Crepe Ring" because it seemed to be composed of darker material than the brighter A and B Rings. Its vertical thickness is estimated at 5 m its mass at around 1.1 kg, and its optical depth varies from 0.05 to 0.12. That