Asteroid

Parajanov Asteroid (3963 Paradzhanov)

The asteroid 3963 Paradzhanov (named after the legendary filmmaker Sergei Parajanov) was discovered on October 8, 1969 by Lyudmila Chernykh. The asteroid is also known as 1969 TP2 and has an Absolute Magnitute of 13.6 (whatever that means!) and Eccentricity of 0.1962314 (now that’s surprising; zero eccentricity for Paradjanov!?) Here’s more from Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

[7 April 2008]

Astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh was born on June 13, 1935 in Shuya, Russia.In 1959 she graduated from Irkutsk State Pedagogical University. Between 1959 and 1963 she worked at the Time and Frequency Laboratory of the All-Union Research Institute of Physico-Technical and Radiotechnical Measurements in Irkutsk where she did astrometrical observations for the Time Service.

Between 1964 and 1998 she was the Scientific Worker for the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Russian Academy of Science since 1991), working in the observation base of the institute at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchny settlement. Since 1998 she has been the Scientific Worker for the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.

She is the wife and colleague of Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh. The asteroid 2325 Chernykh discovered in 1979 by Czech astronomer Antonín Mrkos was named in their honour.

She has discovered a number of asteroids, including the Apollo asteroid 2212 Hephaistos and 3147 Samantha.