Word: asteroidal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Akhmatova, whose former husband was executed by the Bolsheviks, was denounced by Soviet authorities and only received some recognition in the years before her death in 1966. So there was a touch of poetic justice last week when Pravda announced that an asteroid discovered by Soviet astronomers will be named Akhmatova in honor of the centennial of her birth next year...
...Planet some 200 days and 118 million miles later, they will orbit for a time, taking data on solar physics. The first Phobos will match orbits with the moon for which it is named, a chunk of rock about 14 miles across believed by many astronomers to be an asteroid captured by Mars' gravity. The other will be a backup...
...Honor). Jackson, who by now could double for his own Tussaud waxwork, is an improbable Han Solo, but he still dances like a jive Astaire and earned audible swoons from teenage girls at the premiere. The film's 3-D effects are familiar but engineered with flair: an asteroid waits to plop in your lap, Fuzzball hovers adorably over your shoulder, and Huston's tentacle talons virtually shred your shirt...
This century has already seen a major meteorite blast. In 1908, either an asteroid or a comet exploded about five miles above the remote Stony Tunguska River region of Siberia, igniting and flattening trees over hundreds of square miles. From descriptions of the blast and photographs of the damage, scientists have estimated that the object was at least 200 ft. across and caused a twelve-megaton explosion...
What if a large asteroid or comet is discovered heading toward the earth? At the AGU meeting, Shoemaker and Colleague Alan Harris, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., suggested that the intruder could be diverted by landing a thrusting device on it. As a last-ditch effort, they say, a small nuclear warhead could be detonated on or near it. Says Shoemaker: "We have the technology to do that right now." But if the explosion simply broke the meteorite into large chunks, the danger would only be multiplied. "The more prudent solution," says Harris, "is to burrow...