Eric James Christensen (born 1977 December 5) is an American astronomer and a discoverer of comets. He works as a staff scientist with Catalina Sky Survey and is responsible for the survey's near-Earth object operation.^[1][2]

Career

Christensen is the director of the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), which is funded by NASA and based at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Christensen is the director of the survey's near-Earth object (NEO) operations, including observing, software development, cadence optimization, telescope and instrument maintenance and collimation, survey modeling and optimization, and project management. He has also spent 5 years at Gemini South Observatory in Chile as part of the science operations team, including hunting for meteorites in the Atacama Desert.

Discoveries

Numbered comets

Unnumbered comets

Awards and honors

Asteroid 13858 Ericchristensen, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in 1999, was named in his honor.^[1] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 22 July 2013 (M.P.C. 84377).^[3]

References

External links

• A Little Comet Named Christensen, David H. Levy, 8 June 2009
• Eric Christensen Archived 3 February 2020 at the Wayback Machine, University of Arizona
• Four Comets in Two Days – Comet Christensen (210P/Christensen = P/2003 K2), Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, 26 January 2018
• Comets discovered in 2007, BAA Comet Section

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