Word: orbits
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...giant collisions are a common aspect of planet formation, and these big impacts might go a long way toward explaining the puzzling diversity observed among planets." That diversity was emphasized last week when astronomers using the University of California's Lick telescope reported the discovery of two planets in orbit around a distant star. Unlike all previously discovered extra-solar planets, which have highly elliptical orbits, these two were moving in nearly circular paths. Alas, even the best telescopes are not sensitive enough to detect any extra-solar moons...
...staggeringly low $40,000 - only $4,000 of it needed to walk free. It was paid by Barbara Bronfman, a Montreal socialite who had married into the Seagram distillery family and met Einhorn through a common interest in the paranormal. It was Einhorn's new rage, and his orbit of friends had expanded to include Uri Geller, the spoon-bending Israeli illusionist...
...staggeringly low $40,000 - only $4,000 of it needed to walk free. It was paid by Barbara Bronfman, a Montreal socialite who had married into the Seagram distillery family and met Einhorn through a common interest in the paranormal. It was Einhorn's new rage, and his orbit of friends had expanded to include Uri Geller, the spoon-bending Israeli illusionist...
...only exit strategy. Donald Korycansky of the University of California at Santa Cruz and his collaborators suggest that Earth could be edged out of harm's way with a gravitational slingshot, a trick long used to boost the speed of planetary probes. Earth would be the spacecraft, grabbing orbital energy from a passing asteroid. That would increase Earth's speed and enlarge its orbit. Repeated every few thousand years, Korycansky & Co. reckon, such flybys could stretch Earth's habitable lifetime by billions of years...
...Coin dealers in Louisiana have gotten their senator, John Breaux, to propose an amendment they're itching to get passed: allowing investments in rare coins that are traded by brokers to be put in individual retirement accounts. The coin market has gone into orbit the last 20 years with some rare currencies commanding million-dollar price tags. Numismatists have a powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, and coin dealers have been fighting hard to repeal a 1981 law barring rare coins from being included in IRAs. No, you couldn't turn that penny jar you've got stored in the closet...