Word: comets
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nearer to earth, IRAS identified at least five new comets and spotted a "miniplanet" only 1.2 miles in diameter, possibly the cadaver of a comet, circling within the orbit of the innermost planet, Mercury. IRAS also uncovered some bands of fine dust spread over 100 million miles in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The dust may be the debris of collisions between asteroids...
...energy of Japan's volcanoes. In seismology, the Japanese are aggressively looking for early warning signals in their tremulous terrain. Though initially dependent on help from NASA, Japan's space agency is now launching satellites with its own rockets, and will attempt to intercept Halley's comet when that celestial object races around the sun in 1986; similar U.S. plans have been dropped. Even in fields where they are clearly behind, such as genetic engineering and cell biology, important to their national goal of finding a cancer cure, the Japanese have organized an effort to catch...
Even sharp-eyed amateurs with small telescopes or binoculars could make out the comet's bright central mass, or nucleus, and its long gaseous tail. Astronomers concluded that I-A-A was probably not a "virginal" comet, meaning one that has never before swept around the sun. Its lack of brilliance suggested that the sun had boiled off some of its icy material on earlier journeys, hundreds or even thousands of years...
Like most comets, I-A-A contains molecules of ammonia and nitrogen, along with water, presumed building blocks of the solar system. But another satellite, the International Ultraviolet Explorer, also found surprising indications of sulfur molecules. Said University of Maryland Astronomer Michael A'Hearn: "The sulfur may be one of the few things we see that actually reside in the comet's nucleus." The most stunning observational feat came when the big, 1,000-ft. radio telescope in Arecibo, PR., managed to bounce radar waves off the fleeting object and perhaps settled the old argument over whether cometary...
...most elated observer was undoubtedly Araki, who regularly scans the skies over his village in Niigata prefecture. "I've discovered a wonderful star," said the young bachelor. "Now I've got to discover a wonderful wife." Perhaps the comet was a propitious sign...