Carl Leo Stearns was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

.

After graduating from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 in 1917 with high honors in general scholarship and special honors in mathematics, Stearns received his Phd from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

.http://books.google.com/books?id=_TYXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA540&lpg=PA540&dq=%22carl+leo+stearns%22+and+%22wesleyan+university%22&source=bl&ots=jnyoNTEGuA&sig=x-TGkAe9kI7iBqYg_nXjQdYycDM&hl=en&ei=zn9vS8bLKdXp8Qb0i9H7BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22carl%20leo%20stearns%22%20and%20%22wesleyan%20university%22&f=false http://www.archive.org/stream/alumnirecordofwe00weslrich/alumnirecordofwe00weslrich_djvu.txt He became an instructor in mathematics and astronomy at Wesleyan in 1919. He became an assistant professor in 1920, then an associate professor in 1942 and a full professor in 1944. He served as chairman of the astronomy department at Wesleyan, then in 1960 he was named as emeritus Fisk professor of astronomy. From 1960–71, after serving as an assistant, he became director of the Van Vleck Observatory

Van Vleck Observatory

Van Vleck Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Wesleyan University. It was built in 1914 and named after the former head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at the university, Prof. John M. Van Vleck. It is located in Middletown, Connecticut .-Directors:*...

; the second to hold that position.

During his career he computed more than 200 stellar trigonometric parallaxes. In 1927 he discovered the comet

Comet

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

 1927 IV (comet Stearns, 1927d). This is one of the largest comets discovered and it holds the record for the maximum heliocentric distance a comet has ever been observed.

The asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 (2035) Stearns

2035 Stearns

2035 Stearns is a Mars-crossing asteroid discovered on September 21, 1973 by J. Gibson at El Leoncito.- External links :*...

 is named after him, as is the crater Stearns

Stearns (crater)

Stearns is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. Unlike many lunar craters, this is a relatively fresh and well-defined impact feature with little appearance of erosion. The rim edge is sharp and roughly circular, with some unevenness. The inner walls are simple slopes down to piles of...

 on the far side of the Moon

Far side of the Moon

The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that is permanently turned away, and is not visible from the surface of the Earth. The far hemisphere was first photographed by the Soviet Luna 3 probe in 1959, and was first directly observed by human eyes when the Apollo 8 mission orbited the Moon...

.