Sonia Keys

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Sonia Keys (1961 – August 13, 2018), formerly known as Kyle Smalley, was an American amateur astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets. She worked as an astronomer and software developer at the Minor Planet Center. Asteroid 36445 Smalley was named after her.[1][2]

Biography

As an electronics technician and nuclear reactor operator, she had served in the United States Navy aboard a submarine and was honorably discharged in 1982. In 1986, she completed her bachelor degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Central Missouri.[1][3]

Keys was engaged in the study of near-Earth asteroids and developed procedures to search lost asteroids.[4] She was a member of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City[5][6] and most of her observations were made at their Powell Observatory in Kansas. She also worked as a consultant at the Minor Planet Center (MPC) of the International Astronomical Union. The asteroid 36445 Smalley, discovered by amateur astronomer Larry Robinson at the Sunflower Observatory Template:Obscode in August 2000, was named in her honor.[2] The official Template:MoMP was published by the MPC on September 21, 2002 (M.P.C. 46685Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".).[7] In 2003 she won the Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She died of cancer in Cambridge, Massachusetts on August 13, 2018.[1][3] On 25 March 2021, the MPC credited her with the discovery of asteroid Template:LoMP, she first observed at the Powell Observatory on 14 August 2001.[8]

See also

References

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Preceded byTemplate:S-bef/checkTemplate:Succession box/check Amateur Achievement Award of Astronomical Society of the Pacific
2003 Template:S-ttl/check
Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by