Today in Science (0716)

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Events

1862 - Comet Swift-Tuttle is discovered by Lewis Swift.

1945 - Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates (see above) a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1994 - Jupiter is hit by fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Births

1888 - Frits Zernike, Dutch physicist, Nobel laureate

1926 - Irwin Rose, American biologist, Nobel laureate

Deaths

1916 - Ilya Mechnikov, Russian microbiologist, Nobel laureate

1994 - Julian Schwinger, American physicist, Nobel laureate

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"Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretenses to foretell events." -Jonathan Swift Last week, I showed you the new, highest-resolution mosaic ever made of the near side of the Moon. And I also showed you a small, somewhat unusual feature that I…
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It's hideous...