Word: leonide
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That memorable 1966 display of the so-called Leonid meteors was visible across much of the Western U.S. and marked the century's greatest meteor storm to date. Now, after 32 years of relatively modest return visits, the Leonids are poised to stage another celestial spectacular on the nights of Nov. 17 and Nov. 18. How spectacular? Scientists forecast heavy meteor showers and, just possibly, a full-blown storm as dramatic as the one 32 years...
During those 32 years, however, something has changed. None of the handful of satellites orbiting the globe in 1966 was hit by a Leonid. But today the planet is circled by a bewildering variety of spacecraft--about 600 in all--that have become indispensable to modern society: relaying phone calls, e-mail and faxes; monitoring hurricanes, terrorist activities and crop yields. A collision with a meteor could damage or disable any one of them. That is why NASA, the Air Force and the Russian space agency are directing a wholesale reorientation of their fleets of orbiting spacecraft...
...Leonid showers are alike, however. As Donald Yeomans, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, notes, "Most of the particles are following closely behind the parent comet. That's where the gathering is thickest, and it's only when the comet is in Earth's neighborhood that we get intense showers or storms...
NASA is taking no chances. It will power down any threatened spacecraft to avoid short circuits and will temporarily orient each one, says Riegler, "so that its strongest side faces the incoming Leonids." Even the Hubble Space Telescope will turn its back to the meteoroids, to shield the aperture through which it scans the heavens. And the flat solar panels that energize most of the satellites will be turned edge on to the Leonid stream to minimize the possibility of impact...
Gisellepremiered in Paris on June 28th, 1841 and at the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia in 1842. Boston Ballet's current production, staged by artistic director Anna-Marie Holmes, maintains Russian tradition by exactly reproducing the highly acclaimed production ofGisellestaged by Leonid Lavrosky and the Bolshoi Ballet...