Thursday, April 8, 2004

A good reason to head South for May

In May we'll be treated to a pair of comets that are rare visitors from the Oort Cloud. Their names are NEAT (C/2001 Q4) and LINEAR (C/2002 T7). The picture above is one my seven-year old boy, who is even more into this stuff than I am, insisted I put up. It's copied out of the excellent Starry Night Pro Plus. When I get the Linux laptop back I'll be wanting to try the same thing with also excellent KStars. The image shows the placement of the inner planets and the two comets around May 15.

Unfortunately for us North Hemispherians, the show will be most visible from the South half of the planet.

Bonus link: A Java comet tracking program, following NEAT at the NASA site. Zoom in, center on Earth and watch how close this mother comes. Almost a bull's eye.

Prize fighters

Projo.com and the Providence Journal are finalists for a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The honor is for their joint coverage of the Station nightclub fire. Here's the blog, which is part of the whole thing. Says Sheila Lennon, who worked on the project,

The death of 100 people is no occasion for celebration, and some here have said it's for the best that the usual champagne corks won't be popping here. I'd trade any prize -- even a winning Powerball ticket -- if doing so could have prevented that fire.

Context: Being a finalist is something like coming in second, even though in some years no Pulitzer Prizes go to any of the finalists.

If you want to learn more about how the whole Pulitzer system works, Roy Harris's The Pulitzers That Got Away is Sheila's excellent bonus link.