Week 34
This Week in History: August 16-22
AUGUST 16, 1898: DeLisle Stewart at Harvard College Observatory’s Boyden Station in Arequipa, Peru, takes photographs on which Saturn’s outer moon Phoebe is discovered, although the images of Phoebe were not noticed until the following March by William Pickering. Phoebe was the first planetary moon to be discovered via photography, and it and other small …
Comet of the Week: Levy 1990c
Perihelion: 1990 October 24.68, q = 0.939 AU I’ve commented in previous “Ice and Stone 2020” presentations that I spent several hundred hours unsuccessfully hunting for new comets before giving up that endeavor, and then accidentally discovered the comet that bears my name three years later. I did the bulk of my hunting during the …
Special Topic: The “Building Blocks” of Life
The “Special Topics” presentation two weeks ago discussed the possibility that signs of life might exist within certain meteorites that have been found to have come from Mars, although it did so partially within the overall context of “are we alone?” Another part of that discussion revolves around how life on Earth – and, hopefully, …