Added 1 new A* page:Here's an interesting article about the asteroid the Deep Impact spacecraft was supposed to go after in 2007, instead of comet Hartley 2; the original plan was to go after the 11-year short-period comet Boethin, which had been discovered in 1975 and was seen again in 1986 as its elliptical orbit brought it back around toward the Sun. But Boethin...was never seen again.
| Whether because of the gravitational pull of a nearby planet, the pressure of pent-up gas from sublimating ice or some other mechanism, comet breakups are rather common. One study had estimated that short-period comets such as Boethin each have a better than 3 percent chance of falling apart in any given century. |
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The person or people behind the quietly lovely, side-scrolling sci-fi webcomic Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life is/are back with a new webcomic, Opplopolis. It's early yet and I'm not sure if it's going to be science fictiony, but there's some kind of mystery, and words, and oh the colors, children!
(^ That tip, incidentally, came from the author of the silent, fantastic, black and white, and sometimes macabrily (okay that isn't really a word) gory webcomic Stupid Snake.)
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