Discovering asteroid Vesta: the story of the Celestial Police
March 10, 2021 at 11:18 am
Vesta, the brightest asteroid in our Solar System’s asteroid belt, was one of the very first asteroids to be discovered. The story of how Vesta was discovered is one full of failure, jealously and discredited theories, as all good science history should be.
Advertisement
Today we know of around two million asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but 250 years ago the existence of anything at all in that area of the sky was mere speculation.
In 1766 a German astronomer and mathematician, Johann Daniel Titius formulated a mathematical law for explaining and predicting the spacing between planets in a planetary system. This is the first discredited theory we will meet in this story.
Flooding that burst through levees, swamped farms and inundated homes and businesses in cities and towns across Iowa, Nebraska and other Midwestern states two years ago is part of a climate change-driven weather phenomenon that scientist say is happening more frequently.
A new University of Iowa study says rising greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human activity are producing an increased frequency of a weather phenomenon that researchers call the Midwest water hose.
The Midwest water hose pulls moisture from the Gulf of Mexico that is then lifted above cold dry air from the North, leading to heavy rainfall in the Midwest. The weather event has been occurring more frequently over the last 40 years, researchers Wei Zhang and Gabriele Villarini wrote in a recently published study.
Onesimus Story: How an Enslaved Man Helped Boston Battle a Devastating Disease – NBC Chicago nbcchicago.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nbcchicago.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Often overlooked in the history of that inoculation is an enslaved man who had been brought to Boston named Onesimus, according to experts.
Inoculated against smallpox in Africa, Onesimus testified that purposely infecting a person with a disease protected them against dying from the virus. It was vital in starting the first smallpox inoculations in Boston.
The episode is important for the history of public health and scientific innovation [and] important for the history of race relations, Harvard history of science professor David S. Jones said.
Yet Onesimus role in Boston s first inoculations was for years less well-known than the man who owned him, the influential preacher Cotton Mather, famous for his role in the Salem witch trials.
Onesimus Story: How an Enslaved Man Helped Boston Battle a Devastating Disease – NBC Bay Area nbcbayarea.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nbcbayarea.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.