Word: comet
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Harvard astronomers circled the Boston heavens last night in a "flying planetarium" to record the effects of the meteor shower from the comet Giscobint-Zinner...
...astronomers also gave assurance that the display would be visible without intruments if weather conditions were good. They indicated that a comet which sails under the name of Giacobini-Zinner is responsible for this affair, and that this body will be only 131,000 miles away from the earth during the next three days...
...quick look at the records showed that only one other solar body has approached as near to this planet, a mere stone's throw in astronomical circles considering that the moon is a little less than twice as far away. The last appearance of this particular comet comparable in proximity occurred...
Astronomers believe that meteors are the debris of broken comets, and they shudder to think what would happen if a comet head itself, approaching at some 45 miles per second, were to crash into the earth. Astronomers' guesstimate of the chances: once in 100 million years (age of the earth: two billion years...
...comet collision would be a cream-puff blow compared with an encounter between the earth and an asteroid. These small bodies, believed to be pieces of a planet once located between Mars and Jupiter, have highly eccentric orbits and often shoot close to the earth. In 1937 a small asteroid, Hermes, missed the earth by only 500,000 miles - a bare stone's throw as interplanetary space is reckoned...