Week 37
This Week in History: September 6-12
SEPTEMBER 6, 1618: The German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler observes Comet 1618 I (new style C/1618 Q1) – the first of three “Great Comets” that appeared that year – through a small telescope, the first recorded telescopic observation of a comet. SEPTEMBER 8, 1991: Tom Gehrels with the Spacewatch program in Arizona discovers the …
Comet of the Week: 2I/Borisov I/2019 Q4
Perihelion: 2019 August 8.55, q = 2.007 AU According to our present understanding of how the solar system formed and evolved, all the various comets, including those passing through the inner solar system as well as those in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, are the “leftovers” from the planet formation process. Over the …
Special Topic: “Small Bodies” Moons
The “Special Topics” presentation four weeks ago was on the subject of the small moons of the various planets in the solar system. It would seem reasonable to think that the bodies that possess moons don’t stop with the major planets, but that many of the “small bodies” that are the focus of “Ice and …