Word: planet
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most famous discovery of the late Percival Lowell '76--Planet Pluto--may not be a bona fide planet after all. Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper of the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory has declared to the scientific world that Pluto is not a planet, but instead only one of Neptune's satellites...
Kuiper, one of the world's greatest astronomers, bases his theory on the observations that Pluto takes too long--six and a half days--to describe an orbit "too eccentric for a planet," and is much too small to deserve the title of planet...
...billion miles away, has little personality for them. The outermost member of the solar system, it shines only feebly by reflected sunlight. Even in the biggest telescopes it looks like a faint star; only its motion among the real stars and a slight fuzziness prove it to be a planet. Astronomers are not sure how big it is (probably midway between Mercury and Mars), but recently they have learned how fast it rotates on its axis...
...wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course...
...awakened about 3 a.m. by the R.A.F. and asked about an object 3,000 feet due west. I hopped out of bed and had a look. I should have said, 'Take off, boys, it's the Russians,' but I had to tell them it was the planet Mars...