Word: asteroidal
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SCIENCE: A fast-moving asteroid just misses earth...
Where were you on the night of March 23? Out dancing, perhaps, or attending a PTA meeting or just sitting at home watching L.A. Law? If so, you did not realize how close you came to disaster. While you were blissfully unaware of the danger, a huge asteroid whizzed past the earth, coming closer than any other such heavenly body seen in 52 years. If the giant clump of rock -- half a mile across by one estimate -- had hit the planet, it would have packed the wallop of thousands of H-bombs and possibly killed millions of people...
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...