Week 09
This Week in History: February 23-29
FEBRUARY 23, 1988: David Levy obtains the final visual observation of Comet 1P/Halley during its 1986 return, using the 1.5-meter telescope at Catalina Observatory in Arizona. The comet was located 8.0 AU from the sun and appeared at 17th magnitude. FEBRUARY 24, 1979: The U.S. Defense Department satellite P78-1 is launched from Vandenberg Air Force …
Comet of the Week: Whipple-Fedtke-Tevzadze 1942g
Perihelion: 1943 February 6.72, q = 1.354 AU The name of Fred Whipple is legendary in cometary astronomy. He spent several decades as an astronomer and professor at Harvard University, and is best known for developing what he called the “icy conglomerate” model of a comet’s nucleus (more commonly referred to as the “dirty snowball”) …
Special Topic: Great Comets
Few, if any, sights in the nighttime sky are more impressive than that of a bright, long-tailed comet. It is little wonder that our ancestors of just a few centuries ago, who had little idea of what they were actually seeing, were amazed and perhaps even terrified of the sight, and even today the appearance …
Ice and Stone 2020 Word Search #2
Do your best to find these words that are scattered throughout the sixth weekly edition of Ice and Stone 2020. Words may be placed horizontally or vertically. Letters in the grid may be used in more than one word, but not all the letters in the grid have to appear in a word. More from …