Word: comets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...FIRST complete biography of Herbert George Wells comes at no better time. With the comet Kohoutek whispering across the winter skies, and new visions of apocalypse conveniently centering themselves around its strange apparition, science is experiencing one of its cyclical, popular questionings. While Kohoutek harkens back to one of Wells's more obscure works, In The Days of The Comet, another more recent scientific popularization revives what was a major issue in Wells's life and works. That is the great debate of nature vs. nurture, genetics vs. environment, Shockley vs. the sane world. For, throughout Wells's works, there...
Kohoutek is named for its discoverer, Lubes Kohoutek. The Czech astronomer spotted the comet last March, while observing at West Germany's Hamburg Observatory...
William A. Deutschman, associate of the Harvard College Observatory and coordinator of Operation Kohoutek for the Smithsonian, said yesterday that the Smithsonian is the "clearing house for all world observations of Kohoutek" and has access to the best and latest information on the comet. "The Smithsonian's data does not show anything like this [the disintegration] happening," Deutschman said...
Whipple said that by viewing Kohoutek, he hopes to confirm his "dirty snowball" theory, which holds that the comet's nucleus is composed of dust particles imbedded in the ices of simple molecules of water, methane and ammonia...
...said that dust pollution and light pollution will make observation of the comet in the city of Boston "futile." Celestial enthusiasts should go to the west of the city to see Kohoutek under optimum conditions, Whipple said...