Schelte J. Bus

Bus graduated in 1979 from California Institute of Technology with a BS.^{[citation needed]} In 1999, he received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.^[2] With Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Richard Binzel, Bus further added to the knowledge about main-belt asteroids in a spectroscopic survey published in 2002. This project was known as Small Main-Belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey, Phase II or SMASSII, which built on a previous survey of the main-belt asteroids. The visible-wavelength (435–925 nanometers) spectra data was gathered between August 1993 and March 1999.^[4] During his studies, he worked under the supervision of Eugene Shoemaker.^[5] As of 2017, Bus is an Astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy and deputy director of NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility IRTF.^[3]

Asteroid 3254 Bus, which was discovered in 1982 by Edward Bowell, was named in his honor.^[6]

In 1981, Bus discovered periodic comet 87P/Bus. Since 1975, he has also discovered or co-discovered over a thousand asteroids, including: an Apollo asteroid, 2135 Aristaeus, which will come within 13 lunar distances of the Earth on 30 March 2147; an Amor asteroid; and more than 40 Jupiter trojans. The first of these was 3240 Laocoon, which he co-discovered with Eleanor F. Helin. Bus was also the discoverer of asteroids 5020 Asimov and 4923 Clarke, named after two science fiction writers (see 5020 and 4923).