Waves Passing in the Night

In the history of astronomy, there was a conjecture in the 1760s that the planets orbit the sun in distances that can be described by a simple rule: 

Raise 2 to the power of the planet in sequence:

Multiply that by 3.

To that product add 4.

Divide that sum by 10. 

You get a measurement in “astronomical units” i.e., Earth-distances. And it is almost correct. After Mars, before Jupiter, there needs to be a planet Number 5. Then Jupiter is 6 and Saturn 7. Seeking Planet 5 led to the discovery first of Ceres in 1801, then Pallas (1802), Vesta (1807), and so on; and we are still finding asteroids in that gap. 

Today, the “Titius-Bode Conjecture” is ignored by serious astronomers. It is accepted as an accident of algebra that any small distribution can be described by some formula of arbitrary simplicity. 

Waves Passing in the Night:
Walter Murch in the Land of the
Astrophysicists; Bloomsbury, 2017.

Walter Murch found it compelling. Murch is a musician. He was born in 1943; his family was literate, artistic, and economically comfortable. Young Murch was fascinated by sound and by age 12 he had his own tape recorder. Decades later, he received Academy Awards for working on Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, American Graffiti, and other films. Murch found a deep truth in the Titius-Bode Conjecture. To him, it is evidence of the Music of the Spheres: something that we perceive caused by something deeper, more subtle, that we do not. 

Murch’s biographer, Lawrence Weschler, loves his subject. Weschler is more than fair to Murch’s detractors. No serious astronomer agrees with him. They will not even read his papers to refute them. This is not about medieval geometry: Murch has extended his theory to include wave mechanics as applied to gravity. That led one scientist to ask: “Why do our interplanetary spacecraft not detect such disturbances?” It is a cogent question. 

I snagged this book from my city library’s “De-acquisitioning Bookcase.” (25 cents each, all with their library call numbers on them. What would Eratosthenes say to that?) I took it down because of the title, but it fell open to Ernst Chladni and his waves in sand on a vibrating steel plate. When I worked at the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor, this was a learning station in the gallery. I referred to it often when explaining fireworks in the kitchen to mixed audiences. I would say, “We can imagine electrons as little balls with minus-signs orbiting a nucleus, but it is more helpful to think of them like those standing waves of sand, as probability distributions.” 

So, the book seemed complex, over-arching, challenging, and probably wrong, but certainly interesting. And it is all of that. 

Weschler lets Murch do his own advocating. Aside from the necessary explanations, Weschler just points the reader to Murch’s website and other works. For a thin book (150 pages), it stands on eight pages of references. It seemed like a good way to get lost and if I had more time, I might follow that path. 

For now, I am happy to have reinforced my belief that the universe is not merely knowable, it is comfortable. And there is sound in space.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

G. H. Hardy’s “Apology”

Elisha Loomis and the Pythagorean Proposition 

Imaginary Numbers are Real. Pegasus is not. 

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers 

Book Review - Writing for Their Lives: America’s Pioneering Female Science Journalists

 

Writing for Their Lives: America's
Pioneering Female Science Journalists
by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette
MIT Press, 2023.

Written from access to archives of memoranda and correspondences among the editors and journalists, this book is a case of special pleading. Every rejection is laid at the feet of the Science Service management, though the author also grants that the founders were egalitarian in their evaluation of writers and the works which they submitted for publication. In fact, Science Service stands out as evidence of a paradigm shift in western culture from tradition and privilege to merit and meritocracy. 

It is certainly true that even into the 21st century, men who hold power discriminate against women who do not. That is the definition of sexism. And it applies to racism, or any other “ism.” The problem is not prejudice but prejudice with power. At Science Service that prejudice never existed though it remained  very real (even rampant) in the wider world. 

Jane Stafford  was granted a special award for medical writing by the American Society for the Control of Cancer and correspondence across December 1937 and January 1938 reveals that she could not accept the award in person because women were not allowed to enter the Harvard Club. And the ASCC and Harvard were among many others that had no intention of changing their by-laws lest a roomful of men feel uncomfortable in the presence of a woman. (page vii-viii) 

“As novelist Josephine Tey’s fictional historian reminds us, ‘Truth isn’t in accounts but in account books.’ Hidden within the Science Service records at the Smithsonian Institution Archives were sufficient examples of ‘account books’ (budgets, financial reports, pay lists, rejection slips to stringers, carbon copies, memos, and handwritten notes in letter margins) to shed light on workplace interactions, the writing process, and reactions to success, rejection or criticism.” (WFTL, page xii)

It is easy for us to accept that such rooms should be more-or-less 50-50. I believe that because most women are smarter than most men, the populations of academic societies will be shifted toward the women, if not within this generation then by the end of this century. A century ago, that hypothesis would have been dismissed on metaphysical grounds: men are essentially different from women—different from each other in their Aristotelean essences. 

The question that Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette does not ask is why does not everyone else in the world see the same obvious truth that she does? In fact, at least one other person does: 

https://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/caroline-herschel

'Caroline Herschel's legacy is undoubtedly lasting'

Astronomer Sherry Suyu from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics on comet-hunter Caroline Herschel, the first salaried female astronomer

[Q] Obviously, much has improved for women in science since the 18th Century. In your view and your experience, what do you regard as changes that have happened in terms of women in science?    

[A] The situation of course has improved in contrast to Caroline's time. In many areas, women and men now enjoy equal opportunities and there have been many positive changes. But there are still fewer women in STEM at higher levels – mainly I think because it is difficult to combine a professional career in science with having children. I think that employers should provide more support for women, so they can combine having a family with having a career. Scientists are evaluated by productivity. In that sense, when women start a family, their productivity is seen to decline as women who have families often take a break from their careers, hoping to return after a few years. But in reality, it's not that easy to continue with the same level of work productivity as before while rearing children. This means that in career terms, women still tend to be punished for having a family. Also, ironically, the time in women's lives when they want to have children and the time when they really want to work hard on their careers often coincides, when women are in their 30s. I think this should be reflected by family friendly initiatives in the workplace - women shouldn't have to choose between a family and a career.

https://www.mpg.de/frauen-in-der-forschung/caroline-herschel

https://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/caroline-herschel

Das Gespräch führte Tanja Rahneberg Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

That program would allow women to work from home at the highest levels of management while men report to work to carry out the various tasks. Of course such generalizations must also acknowledge the Non-Binary Alphabet of Choices. Reconciling all of them equitably is a complex mathematical problem. However, if we only consider each person to be an individual, then the math is much easier. 

As for broad social change, during the late Middle Ages, English women who were shoemakers were called Shuster, bakers Baxter, brewers Brewster, and weavers Webster. It was a time of changes.

“The 1820s was the last decade in which no college for women existed. The first of its kind, Mount Holyoke, was founded not too far from Amherst in 1836. … Yet the very existence of Mount Holyoke (following a new array of academies providing high-school education for girls, and opening up posts for women teachers) must have shifted ideas for women’s futures.” (page 29) Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds by Lyndall Gordon, Viking, 2010.

Writers and their Beats Today

How much were the writers actually paid for their stories? How much did Science Service charge? We follow Hallie Hershberger in sales and advertising but never learn what the numbers were. There is very little mention of money, except as for example, Emma Reh in Mexico wrote to the home office for advances which were denied. Reh then sold her stories to other news outlets and even to other news reporters. LaFollette’s tone is that Emma Reh was not given everything that the author wants her to have had. I see Emma Reh as a very successful freelancer (“stringer” in journalism) who traveled to archaeological digs in Mexico and sold her reports. Ultimately, Emma Reh failed to deliver the book she promised. The economic problems at that time (the 1920s and 30s) were not hers alone. Failures happen and Reh accomplished much. 

“We were founded as an independent nonprofit in 1921 by newspaper magnate E.W. Scripps and zoologist W.E. Ritter, who wanted to improve the quality and accuracy of science journalism. We remain true to that mission today.” —  https://www.sciencenews.org/about-science-news (Accessed 6-June-2026.)

Science Service writer Gabriele Rabel reported from Germany from 1932 to 1938. LaFollette writes: “[Science Service editor, Frank] Thone expressed hope that ‘the financial sky will clear,’ but informed Rabel on March 6, 1933, that ‘in view of the monetary crisis which has suddenly developed in this country, it would be well if you did not send us any more manuscripts until further notice.” 

LaFollette seemed not to understand the Great Depression of the 1930s. The rolling bank failures began in Detroit on February 14, 1933. Michigan Governor William Comstock  declared a banking holiday. The proclamation had been signed at 1:00 AM, published, and delivered to bankers when they arrived for the start of the business day. Two weeks later, outgoing President  Herbert Hoover hesitated to declare a national bank holiday, so the newly-inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that on March 6, 1933. The flow of money in the United States stopped. 

They resumed eventually with many banks closed permanently and others reorganized and the dollar redefined from 1/20 of an ounce of gold to 1/32. Dollars were 60% smaller and there were more of them to go around. When LaFollette tallies payments made from 1928 though 1954 for 1 or 2 cents per word or $3 to $6 per article (p. 105-106) or editors paid $2600, $3640, $3900, or topped at $10,000 for the publisher 1927-1928 (p. 186) when dollars were much larger, the reader would have been helped with some standards of value against a market basket or comparable wages for clericals and college graduates. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

She’s Such a Geek!   

The Art of Finance 

The Madame Curie Complex 

The Science of Liberty 

MERRY NEWTONMAS 2025

Sir Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642. Following the Gregorian calendar, Newtonmas would be on January 4. One advantage to keeping the traditional date is that this coincides the year of Galileo's with the year of Newton's birth. Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, many of my friends were Ukrainians and others whose churches kept the old Julian calendar, giving some of the kids two dates for presents. (It also explains Tom Clancy’s Red October, even though the Bolshevik phase of the 1917 Revolution began on November 7.)

THE LEGEND OF THE MARTIANS 

György Marx (Eötvös University Department of Atomic Physics)

There is a rumor in America that there are two intelligent races on Earth: humans and Hungarians. (Isaac Asimov)

The story is here from Page 116 forward.
Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1994, 1997, 2001

- Enrico Fermi was an outstanding talent who was interested in many things besides nuclear physics. He was also known for asking famous questions. Fermi questions have a long introductory text, for example: - "The Universe is vast, with billions of stars, many of them similar to our Sun. Planets may also orbit many stars. A significant proportion of these planets may have liquid water and a gaseous atmosphere on their surfaces. The light from the star may have triggered the synthesis of organic compounds on them, turning the ocean into a thin, warm soup. The carbon compounds linked together to create self-reproducing structures. The simplest living things reproduce, develop through natural selection, become increasingly complex, and eventually develop into active thinking beings. Civilization, science, and technology develop. Longing for new and fresh worlds, they travel to neighboring planets, later to planets of nearby stars, and thus spread throughout the Galaxy. Such highly developed, talented peoples can hardly ignore this beautiful planet, Earth. - And then Fermi he came to his essential question:  - If all this is true, then where are they?

Szilárd Leó had a good sense of humor, and he answered Fermi's rhetoric this way:

- They are here among us, but they call themselves Hungarians.

Online in Hungarian at the HUNGARIAN ELECTRONIC LIBRARY / MAGYAR ELEKTRONIKUS KÖNYVTÁR

https://mek.oszk.hu/03200/03286/html/tudos1/marsl.html 

I cut and pasted it into Google Translate to provide the text above. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Still Riding the Gray Planet 

Star Trek Discovery and the Conflict of Values 

Monsters from the Id

A Numismatic History of Hungary 

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science

It is difficult to know when to accept history on its own terms. We tend to not condemn the ancient Greeks, Romans, or Jews for having slaves, though we hold the ante-bellum South culpable. I was not surprised by Seb Falk’s story about Brother John Westwyk’s productive labors in mathematical astronomy and the consequential instrumentation of measurement for those works. But I was enlightened by the search for and discovery of the man who wrote an astronomy text commonly credited to Geoffrey Chaucer. 

Chaucer did author A Treatise on the Astrolabe. It was Dompnus Johannes de Westwyke (Brother John of Westwick) who created Equatorie of the Planetis, a book that had been credited to Chaucer. So, Seb Falk interleaves two stories here: the life of Brother John as best it can be built from scant records; and the development of astronomy (and, generally, science) in the Middle Ages. 

Reading this book the first time through, I knew that I would annotate post-its to bookmark passages. The second time through the book, it soon became clear that I should just copy the whole thing here—which, of course, is not allowed.

“Far from the stereotype of a stagnant scientific environment which did no more than preserve the ideas of the ancients, computists in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries continued to refine their astronomical models, with ever more accurate estimates of the solar and lunar cycles. Scholars became more outspoken in their criticism of the increasingly unrealistic ecclesiastical calendar. In the 1260s Franciscan friar and proponent of empirical science Roger Bacon wrote, at the Pope’s request, a series of tracts on educational reform.” (page 74) 

To compute, you must have a computer. God gave you ten fingers, each with two knuckles. Supported and enhanced with recipes for rapid mental arithmetic, you could calculate the rising and setting of the Sun for your locale—and you could measure musical harmonies, also. If you were enrolled at a university in 1325, to complete a bachelor’s degree required completing the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar; the master’s degree required the Quadrivium of Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy. But attending one of the newly founded universities was expensive. So, monasteries most often paid for a limited education after which the motivated monk studied (and wrote) on his own—and sometimes her own (page 73). 

 

One result of that was that no two books are exactly the same. Copyists used the intentionally available spaces to add their own amendments and emendations, expanding, explaining, and correcting. Books lived. (ref. esp. pages 77 and 124). Knowing this, and expecting that copies will be carried to other places, Brother John Westwick cautioned the next one building an equatorie from his plans: “Nota I conseile the ne write no names of signes til that thow hast proved this commune centre defferent is trewli and justli set.” (Illustration 7.9).

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by Seb Falk; W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2020. (Published in the UK as The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey of Discovery; W. W. Norton & Company, London, 2019.) W. W. Norton's webpage mentions the Best Book awards from The Times, The Telegraph, and BBC History Magazine. I learned of it because it garnered the AAS Historical Astronomy Division Osterbrock Book Award for 2024.

One thread not followed here, which I considered important, is that the manuscript under discussion was first rediscovered by Derek Price deSolla. Price deSolla is also credited with the first rigorous examination of the Antikythera Mechanism (NecessaryFacts here.) No mention of that appears in this book.

 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Science in the Middle Ages 

Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins 

Galileo’s Two Sciences 

Rescuing Aristotle and the Church 

Copernicus On the Revolution of Heavenly Bodies 

 

 

The Tunguska Event of 1908

[This article was accepted and published by the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society for webpages "This Month in Astronomical History" for June 2024. It was then pulled on the insistence of several members of the Planetary Sciences Division of the AAS. See above for September 19.]

Ten thousand kilometers from the blast site in central Siberia, particulates in the atmosphere rendered the night sky in London bright enough read a newspaper.¹ Seismographs at Irkutsk and Kirensk (1200 km and 500 km distant, respectively) recorded the impact which was assumed to have been a meteorite.² Nearly twenty years passed after that morning on 30 June 1908 before scientists could trek over 3000 km from Moscow to the Tunguska river area of what is today Krasnoyarsk Krai in the Evenk Autonomous Okrug. (See Fig. 1.) Expeditions and field work from 1927 to 1932 gathered remembrances from witnesses; occasional explorations into the 21^st century still have provided little evidence to classify the impacting object as a meteor, asteroid, swarm, comet, or black hole.^{3,4,5,6,7,8,9} Parsimony and the standard of extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims have brought most astronomers to assert only that a stony meteoroid about 30 to 50 meters in diameter exploded 10 to 20 kilometers above the ground.^10,11

Leonid Alexyevich Kulik led the first astronomical expedition to the region beginning in February 1927 and arriving in late March. Kulik found the blast site in June. The initial challenge was to identify the exact location. Sending his report to Moscow where it was read to the Russian Academy of Sciences by Academician Vladimir I. Vernadsky, Kulik wrote: “On account of the absence within hundreds of kilometers of any astronomical points and because of the complete unreliability of the maps available for this region, I can only approximately determine the place of the fall as lying in 61°north latitude and in 71° east longitude from Pulkovo.” (Pulkovo Observatory is 30° 19’ 54” east of Greenwich.) An earlier investigation (1924) by Vladimir Obruchev, who extensively explored Siberia, estimated the locale center as 60° 20’ north and 102° 0’ east.³  The fall site is now accepted as 60° 57’ north and 101° 57’ east.¹³

Although latitude and longitude were in some doubt, the site itself was unmistakable. Twenty years after the event, the fallen trees were radii pointing to a depression. The image is iconic. (See Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, etc.) Destruction covers 680 sq. km.³ and damage to the terrain covers 8000 sq. km.¹³ The blast site was obvious by inspection. However, finding the actual fall site, crater, or craters, and the attendant debris has proved less tractable. Over the past century, several expeditions and research projects have unearthed some evidence and more clues to support various theories—but little else.  

In 1988, Andrei E. Zlobin, visited the area, and he wrote: “During the expedition of 1988, in July 24 the author arrived at Pristan camp near the coast of the Khushmo River. He was there from July 24 to July 26. Before returning to Kulik's Zaimka main camp, the author investigated the shoal of the Khushmo River near Pristan with the purpose to find stones which looks [sic] like meteorites.”¹⁴ Zlobin collected 100 samples, three of which were strongly suggestive of being meteor fragments (Fig. 2). 

Approaching the centenary year, motivations were reinforced and another expedition was launched, headed by Luca Gasperini, a marine geologist from the Italian National Research Council. They were rewarded with a “magnetic anomaly” at the bottom of Lake Cheko, which itself has an intriguing conical cross-section.^4,5Yet another exploration and reconsideration apparently dashed those hopes. Lake Cheko is not unique: other depressions in the area also filled with water share its geomorphology and age of 1200 years.¹⁵  Less surprising than the event itself, Gasperini, et al., quickly published a reply.¹⁶ The details of the Tunguska Event remain unsettled and open to continued investigation.

Another such event could be probable within our lifetimes, certainly within the next 200 to 1000 years.⁵ Smaller landfall strikes and near-surface impacts with the atmosphere are more common.

On 15 February 2013, a superbollide meteor in Chelyabinsk, Russia, injured over 1200 people. (Reports were has high as 1500.) The injuries are considered secondary, the result of broken windows and other debris, rather than from the meteor per se. Asteroid 2018 LA was the second asteroid detected in space prior to impacting over land¹⁷exploding over Botswana 2 June 2018. In that case, images had been captured by NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey eight hours earlier, although no determination of the path of asteroid had been computed. On 21 January 2024, NASA’s Scout Impact hazard assessment system identified a meter-sized asteroid (later designated 2024 BX1) 95 minutes before it impacted the atmosphere over Germany, possibly leaving debris 60 km away in the Czech Republic.¹⁸

Astronomer Carrie Nugent published her appeal, The Asteroid Hunters (TED Books Simon & Schuster, 2017) and recorded a TED Talks lecture. First, few researchers are actively scanning the solar systems for “Earth grazers.” Also, of necessity, the objects are small and therefore difficult to detect. Then, there is problem of what to do about any detection. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) of 8 October 2022 was successful¹⁹ but the Planetary Defense Coordination Office was created only in 2016 and this was its first proof of concept mission.²⁰

Rapidly calculating the intersection orbits for such a mission is critical to any last-minute attempt to deflect an asteroid. Among the scientists working on new solutions to celestial mechanics is Claudio Bombardelli of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid who in May and June 2024 was a visiting researcher in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas, Austin. (See Fig. 3). Bombardelli is a member of a team that developed a fast orbit propagator, called DROMO, a generalizable method, which makes use of high speed computers to solve complicated problems in orbital mechanics such as the interception of near-Earth objects.²¹ Their work allows energy-efficient, low-thrust solutions that can be critical to the rapid-deployment scenario of shepherding an asteroid away from contact with Earth.²²

References

1.  Sagan, Carl. (1980). Cosmos: New York: Random House. page 73. 

2.  Bobrovnikoff, N. T. (1927). “A Remarkable Meteorite,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 39, 382-384. 

3.  Astapowitsch, I. S., (Lincoln LaPaz and Gerhard Wiens, translators). 1940. “New Data Concerning the fall of the great [Tungusk] Meteorite on June 30, 1908, in Central Siberia,” Popular Astronomy. Vol. 48 p. 433- 1940 

4.  Gasperini, Luca; et al. (2007). “A possible impact crater for the 1908 Tunguska Event,” Terra Nova, 19: 245-251. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3121.2007.00742.x

5.  Gasperini, Luca; Bonatti, Enrico; and Longo, Giuseppi. (2008). “The Tunguska Mystery—100 Years Later,” Scientific American, June 30, 2008. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-tunguska-mystery-100-years-later/  

6.  Foschini, L; Gasperini, C; et al. (2018). “The atmospheric fragmentation of the 1908 Tunguska Cosmic Body: reconsidering the possibility of a ground impact,” arXiv:1810.07427v2 [astro-ph.EP]

7.   Gladysheva, Olga G. (2020). “Swarm Fragments from the Tunguska Event,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 496. 1144-1148.

8.   Gladysheva, O. G. (2023). “The Structure of the Tunguska Comet,” Earth and Planetary Science, 3(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.36956/eps.v3i1.924

9.  Jackson IV, A, A; Ryan, Michael P. 1973. “Was the Tungusk Event due to a Black Hole?” Nature, vol. 245. September 14, 1973.

10.  Chaisson, Eric; and McMillan, Steve. (2008). Astronomy Today, sixth edition. Pearson Addison Wesley.

11.  Murdin, Paul; and Penston, Margaret (eds). 2004. The Firefly Encyclopedia of Astronomy. Richmond Hill, Ontario: Canopus Publishing. 

12.  Kulik, L. 1935. “On the Fall of the Podkamennaya Tunguska Meteorite in 1908,” Meteor Notes, 1935A, 43. Translated by Lincoln La Paz and Gerhardt Wiens, Edited by Frederick C. Leonard and H. H. Nininger. Published originally in the Journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1927A.

13.  Astapowitsch, Igor. S. (1938). “On the Fall of the Great Siberian Meteorite, June 30, 1908,” Popular Astronomy, Vol. 46, pg. 310, July 1938. 

14.  Zlobin, Andrei E. (2013). “Discovery of Probably Tunguska Meteorites at the Bottom of Khushmo River’s Shoal,” arXiv:1304.8070 [physics.gen-ph]

15. Rogozin, D. Y.; Krylov, P. S.; et al. (2023). ”Morphology of Lakes of the Central Tunguska Plateau (Siberia, Evenkia): New Information on the Problem of the ‘Tunguska Event 1908’, Doklady Rossijskoj akademii nauk., Number 510, May 2023. https://journals.rcsi.science/2686-7397/article/view/135850reported in “New evidence refutes the hypothesis that Lake Cheko is a result of the Tunguska Event,” Russian Center for Science Information, Federal Research Center, 25 May 2023. https://ksc.krasn.ru/en/news/Ozero_cheko/

16.  Gasperini, Luca; Bellucci, Luca Giorgio; et al. (2023) “Comment on Rogozin, et al., (2023), Morphology of Lakes in the Central Tunguska Plateau (Krasnoyarsk krai, Evenkiya): New Data on the Problem of the Tunguska Event of 1908.,” Seismology, Vol 513, p 1200-1203.  

17.  Jenniskens, Peter, et al. (2021) "The impact and recovery of asteroid 2018 LA," Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 56 (4), 844-893.

18.  https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-system-predicts-impact-of-a-very-small-asteroid-over-germany

19.  https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-confirms-dart-mission-impact-changed-asteroids-motion-in-space/

20.  https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense-dart/

21.  Bau, Giulio; Hunh Alexander; Urrutxua, Hodei; Bombardelli, Claudio; Peláez, Jesús. (2011). “DROMO: A New Regularized Orbital Propagator.” International Symposium on Orbit Propagation and Determination, 26–28 September 2011, IMCCE, Lille, France.

22.  Bombardelli, Claudio, et al. (2013). “The ion beam shepherd: A new concept for asteroid deflection,” Acta Astronautica,  Vol. 90, Issue 1.

Fig. 1. Relative distances from Tomsk (pop. 500,000) to Tunguska crater and from Kansas City, Missouri, to the Black Hills of South Dakota, about 12 hours by superhighway or two months by other means. 

Fig. 2. Zlobin’s Figure 2 showing three likely meteorites recovered from the region of the 1908 event. (“Discovery of Probably Tunguska Meteorites at the Bottom of Khushmo River’s Shoal,” arXiv:1304.8070 [physics.gen-ph])

Fig. 3. Claudio Bombardelli explains the DROMO system at the University of Texas (Austin), 9 May 2024. 

Publications in Historical Astronomy

I joined the American Astronomical Society in order to apply for an opportunity to volunteer as an assistant editor for the Historical Astronomy Division’s web page, “This Month in Astronomical History.”  

https://aas.org/posts/news/2020/07/month-astronomical-history-june-2020

My responsibilities are mostly to proofread short (750 to 1500-word) submissions from professionals. The topics generally celebrate some notable date, typically birth and death dates of astronomers, as well as other memorable events. The contributing authors are usually college professors. Some are graduate and post-graduate students in university astronomy programs. A few are amateur affiliates, which is my own status within the AAS. 

https://aas.org/posts/news/2020/10/month-astronomical-history-october-2020

My editors have assigned topics to me. Also, my duties include finding authors, and when I cannot do that, I write the missing calendar entry. In every case, the work is passed upward to other editors, including an AAS publications committee. I always learn a lot, whether from reviewing the works of others or from the improvements made to my work.

https://aas.org/posts/news/2021/04/month-astronomical-history-march-2021

https://aas.org/posts/news/2022/02/month-astronomical-history-march-2022

https://aas.org/posts/news/2022/06/month-astronomical-history-june-2022

https://aas.org/posts/news/2022/08/month-astronomical-history-august-2022

https://aas.org/posts/news/2022/10/month-astronomical-history-september-2022

 

Most people do not know that researchers pay to have their works published. Our common understanding is that your good research findings are submitted to a professional publication which then submits them to other researchers for peer review. That is true. However, just being accepted as worthy is not enough. Therefore, university department budgets include money for subsidized publications, just as they pay for travel to conferences or research sites. That does not apply to the Historical Astronomy Division: we do not charge for publication; however, our platform is entirely electronic, not print; so our costs are minimal. 

https://aas.org/posts/news/2022/12/month-astronomical-history-december-2022

https://aas.org/posts/news/2023/01/month-astronomical-history-january-2023

Also not widely known, even among the literati, is that for the American Astronomical Society if you have a doctorate in astronomy or astrophysics and all you do is teach at university, you cannot (usually) be a full voting member: you are (only) an Educator Affiliate, more akin to an Amateur Affiliate or Alumni Affiliate. Full voting members are primary investigators, the ones who submit grant proposals and hire post-doctorate researchers, doctoral candidates, and other students.

 

PREVIOUSLY IN NECESSARY FACTS

 

Of Watches and Beaches and Atheists 

Cosmos: A Spacetime Travesty 

Sociology is a Science 

Is Physics a Science?