Word: spotting
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...down the road and without Michelle Pfeiffer's Susie Diamond for motivation. Bad is angry at just about everything, from what might have been in his personal life (there's an abandoned son out there somewhere) to the fact that his slick protégé Tommy Sweet (a spot-on Colin Farrell) is hugely successful, largely on the basis of having turned one of Bad's songs into a smash hit. Bad would tell you Tommy's career was never the one he was after, but given how used up he feels by his life in music...
...habitable zones are close-in. A planet in the Goldilocks position around an M-dwarf doesn't take a year to orbit, as Earth does; it takes only a few days (1.6 days, in the case of GJ 1214b). So astronomers need to wait only a few days to spot a planet passing by, and only a few weeks to confirm the orbit with several passes. (See pictures of different nations' space programs...
...dwarfs are so small, moreover, that an Earth-size planet casts a relatively big silhouette as it passes in front of it, making the telltale dimming of starlight easy to spot. It's so easy, in fact, that Charbonneau didn't even need a giant telescope to see it. Instead, he got away with the kind of scope a serious backyard amateur might use. In other words, says Charbonneau, "we did it on the cheap...
...area’s history as a spot for those off the beaten path has kept it a destination for youth and homeless people...
...first time in his 19 years of conducting Christmas consumer surveys, to revise his holiday sales estimate. In early November Beemer predicted a 2.9% drop in retail sales for the holidays. Now he's forecasting just a 1.2% drop in overall holiday sales. "Electronics have been a big bright spot," he says...