Pelageya Fedorovna Shajn, née Sannikova (Пелагея Фёдоровна Шайн) (22 September 1894 – 27 August 1956), was a Russian astronomer in the Soviet Union, and the first woman credited with the discovery of a minor planet, at the Simeiz Observatory in 1928.[2][3] Pelageya also discovered numerous variable stars and co-discovered the periodic, Jupiter-family comet 61P/Shajn–Schaldach. She was married to prominent Soviet astronomer Grigory Shajn.
Pelageya Shajn was born in 1894 to a peasant family in the village Ostanin located in the Solikamsky District of the Perm Governorate.[3] She was the wife of prominent Soviet astronomer Grigory Shajn, who was also her colleague at the Simeiz Observatory. Her maiden name was Sannikova (Санникова).[4][3] In 1928, she discovered the asteroid 1112 Polonia, the first minor planet to be discovered by a woman.[5]
She died 27 August 1956, shortly after her husband had died on 4 August the same year.[4]
Main-belt asteroid 1190 Pelagia, discovered in 1930 by Grigory Neujmin who worked at Simeiz, was named in her honor.[2] In addition the asteroid 1648 Shajna was named in her and her husband's memory,[6] while the lunar crater Shayn was exclusively named after her husband.[7]
Her astronomical discoveries are credited under the name P. F. Shajn. As with her husband, her last name, "Shajn", is sometimes given as "Schajn", "Shain" or "Shayn", the latter being the modern English transliteration.[4]
^"Lunar crater Shayn". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
^Dobronravin, P. P. (1950). Krymskaia astrofizicheskaia observatoriia (Crimean Astrophysical Observatory) (in Russian). University of California. p. 46.
Мишланова Л. Самостоянье (Mishlanova L. Samostoyaniya):『Очерки о людях науки и культуры Пермского края. Пермь』(Essays of men on science and culture of Perm Krai). Пушка, 2006. 320 с.: ил., Из содерж.: Планета Пелагея (Planet Pelagia). С. 27-33.: фот.
