Ice and Stone
New weekly educational series focuses on comets and asteroids
Ice and Stone 2020 is a new weekly series of educational material focusing on some of the small bodies of the solar system – comets and asteroids. The Earthrise Institute, a non-profit educational organization founded by Comet Hale-Bopp co-discoverer Alan Hale, is partnering with RocketSTEM and the La Cumbres Observatory to release the material for FREE online …
This Week in History: January 1-4
JANUARY 1, 1801: On the first day of the 19th Century, Giuseppe Piazzi at the Palermo Observatory in Sicily discovers the first-known asteroid, now known as (1) Ceres. As a resident of the “main asteroid belt” between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres remains the largest-known asteroid (diameter 950 km), and is now formally designated a “dwarf …
Comet of the Week: 81P/Wild 2
Comet 81P/Wild 2’s Perihelion: 2003 September 25.93, q = 1.590 AU Comet 81P/Wild 2 was discovered on January 6, 1978, by Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who photographically patrolled the skies for several decades from the University of Bern. Throughout that time he discovered numerous asteroids and supernovae, as well as eight comets; he has the …
Special Topic: Main belt asteroids
Ice and Stone 2020 is a weekly series of educational material focusing on some of the small bodies of the solar system – comets and asteroids. The Earthrise Institute, a non-profit founded by Comet Hale-Bopp co-discoverer Alan Hale, is partnering with the La Cumbres Observatory and RocketSTEM to release the material for FREE online so that …