Word: triton
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Like many scientists before him, Caltech Graduate Student Thomas McCord was searching for other answers when he made his unexpected discovery. Curious about the odd behavior of the planet Neptune's two moons, Triton and Nereid, he set out to make a mathematical analysis of their unusual orbits. Last week in the Astronomical Journal, he reported that his two-year, computer-aided investigation had not only accounted for the current state of the Neptunian satellites but had also given him a startling glimpse into the future: Triton, largest of the two moons, is doomed to smash into Neptune...
Some 2,600 miles in diameter, Triton orbits Neptune at a distance of 220,000 miles, about the same distance as the moon is from the earth. But unlike the earth's moon and most other solarsystem satellites, Triton moves in a retrograde direction: it circles the "wrong" way-clockwise-around Neptune which spins counterclockwise on its axis. Nereid, only about 200 miles in diameter, revolves in the direction of Neptune's spin, but its orbital path is highly irregular, swinging as far as 6,000,000 miles into space and as close as 900,000 miles from...
Weather vanes have a high-blown tradition. In the 1st century B.C., Greek Architect Andronicus capped his Tower of Winds in Athens with a mighty bronze Triton. The rooster atop the church steeple got its official sanction in the 9th century A.D. when the Pope decreed that every church should mount a weathercock to recall the chanticleer that crowed the night Peter thrice denied his Lord. Vane making reached the peak of its popularity as an art form when American settlers took it up. To record their triumphs of style and ingenuity, Manhattan's Museum of Early American Folk...
...reign in Spain, postulates the author, is "the cult of virility," and woman's fate is to be "enslaved and betrayed." On the reader's acceptance of this arch axiom teeters this over-suave tale. Its stagy business, and that of the Duchess of Combon de Triton, is to make her "appallingly stupid" cluke the first faithful husband in Spanish history. Her scheme is to win his compassion by feigning illness and his awe by submitting to surgical cures without anesthesia or a whimper. Some 30 agonizing operations later, the duke commits suicide. Now the widow, whose "only...
...Argonauts get into all sorts of telegenic scrapes. In one episode, the Argo is sailing through a maritime falling-rock zone, with boulders crashing into the sea from viselike cliffs. Hera, watching the show live, sends Triton from the bottom of the sea to hold the rocks apart so the Argo can sail past. Jason sails on to get the Golden Fleece. He needs this gelt pelt in order to claim the throne of Thessaly, but it is watched over by the Hydra, as disgusting a monster as ever writhed and roared on the screen. Hydra has more heads than...