Word: pluto
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...revolves around the sun at a mean distance of 5.9 billion km (3.7 billion miles) once every 248 years. Even in powerful telescopes, it is visible only as a fleck of light. Pluto, the solar system's ninth planet, was not discovered until 1930, and little is yet known about it. Now astronomers have learned surprising new things about the faroff planet: it appears to have a moon, seems to be much smaller than previously estimated and may some day be stripped of its title as the outermost member of the sun's family of planets...
...Thracian). Yet there was more to them than banditry alone, as this range of art works dating from around the 16th century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D. proves. For Thrace was the land whence came Orpheus, mythical musician-king who enchanted the most ferocious beasts and defied Pluto, the king of the underworld; it was the country where the Horseman--a god combining aspects of Apollo, Dionysos and Asclepius--was at once the object of popular veneration and emulation. People and culture were sufficiently influenced by neighboring Greece, Persia, Western Europe and even Scythia to create a rich variety...
FROZEN HELL. The planet named for the Greek god of the underworld is considerably colder than Venus. Ever since Pluto was first discovered in 1930, scientists have wondered why the planet, which lies on the outermost reaches of the solar system, shines so brightly. Three scientists from the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy have now come up with an answer. Theorizing that Pluto is far enough from the sun to escape its heat and thus likely to be covered by ice, the trio used the telescope at Kitt Peak, Ariz., to study the planet through different filters...
...companion, Dionysus takes along his obese, grumbling Sancho Panza-like servant Xanthias (Michael Vale). They have their slapstick encounters, not only with the cranky Charon, who speaks like a movie gold prospector, but with enticing houris, underworld strong-arm men, termagants, drunks and, finally, the haughty, unamused Pluto (Jerome Dempsey), god of the underworld. It seems that Shakespeare sits on the throne of honor as the No. 1 dramatist in Hades. (In Aristophanes' original it is Aeschylus.) A battle royal of quotations ensues between Shakespeare (Jeremy Geidt) and Shaw (Anthony Holland). The chorus of jurors votes against Shaw...
Lopsided Orbit. Usually obscured by the bright glare of the sun, Mercury remains almost as much a mystery as the most distant planet, Pluto. Half again as large as the moon, Mercury may be almost twice as dense. Traveling in a lopsided orbit, it comes as close to the sun as 29 million miles, then sweeps as far away as 43 million miles. To anyone standing on Mercury's surface, the sun would seem to stand still at times, then move backward briefly, in the Mercurian sky. Another oddity: Mercury's trip around the sun takes 88 earth...