Word: saturn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...astronomer is not always successful, as when he tries to relate the psychology of the Big Bang to the experience of birth. But he is unassailable on subjects of pure science: the awesome structure of a grain of salt; the strange, hospitable atmosphere of Titan, a moon of Saturn. Sagan is at his wittiest when he attacks his bêtes noires: the ideas of Catastrophist Immanuel Velikovsky. Scientists usually lapse into tantrums when they discuss Velikovsky's belief in Venus as the cause of Old Testament miracles and plagues. Sagan, in a chapter worth the price...
...throne, flashing thunderbolts from his fingertips at any lower-echelon staffer who incurs his disfavor. Former Crimson president Richard Meislin '75 snagged a Times job right out of college as Rosenthal's copyboy--bottom of the ladder that runs: copyboy-news clerk-reporter trainee-reporter--and rose like a Saturn V. rocket through the ranks. He now works as Albany burean chief, possibly the youngest bureau chief in the Times' history...
...closeup cameras, it should not only complete a stunning reconnaissance of Jupiter but, by taking advantage of a favorable alignment of the outer planets, will also be able to survey another little-known world. Boosted by Jupiter's strong gravity, Voyager 1 will be catapulted out to Saturn...
...distant voice booms a question. What kind of star could the Magi have followed? Was it a comet? An exploding meteorite? A stella nova? Or perhaps the conjunction in the winter sky of three luminous planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars? Every 800 years they come so close together that they might appear to be some giant star in the dusk. The voice hints at a possible answer to the mystery of what lured the Magi on by explaining that just such a meeting occurred in the sky over the Holy Land in the early spring of the year...
Explaining the alien machine does not explain away the mystery. Astronomers agree that the brief conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars known to have occurred in 6 B.C. could have been the Star of the Three Wise Men. It might, therefore, mark the real time of Christ's birth, which considerable evidence, both historical and calendrical, tends to put some years before the year now known as A.D. 1. There is a slight complication, however. That star would not have been visible to most people in the Holy Land. For at that time of year, astronomers also know...