Focus On: (136199) Eris

Basics

Class: Dwarf planet
Location: Scattered disk
Orbit length (approx): 562.03 years
Discovered: 21st October 2003, 06:25 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, California, by Michael E. Brown, Chad A. Trujillo and David Rabinowitz
Notes: Most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet (ninth known most massive object orbiting the Sun) in the Solar System. High-eccentricity orbit; has one large moon, Dysnomia.
Events at time of discovery:

• October 21 – War on Terrorism: US officials state that they believe Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
• – Scientists call for a total ban on fishing for cod in the North Sea to allow stocks to recover from near extinction.
• – The commander of United Nations forces in Afghanistan warns that the security of Kabul is at risk if security is not achieved in the Afghan countryside.
• – Occupation of Iraq: Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses US troops of using excessive force against civilians in Iraq.
• – Iran's Supreme Council agrees to comply with the IAEA, allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, and suspend its uranium enrichment program.
• – Outbreaks of locusts are reported in Mauritania, Niger and Sudan.
• – The British Government confirms that elections to Northern Ireland's devolved administration will be held on November 26. The Provisional IRA announces a further act of weapons decommissioning. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams declares "the end to physical force republicanism".
• – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The UN General Assembly approves a resolution demanding that Israel remove a security fence in the West Bank by an overwhelming majority of 144 to 4, with the US voting against the motion.
• – Ecuador: US oil company ChevronTexaco is charged in court with polluting a once-pristine swath of the Amazon rainforest. The plaintiffs' lawyers have put a US$1 billion price tag on clean up and medical care for the region's inhabitants.
• – Death of Fred Berry, 52, American actor
• – Death of Alfred Rose, 71, Indian Konkani singer, composer, and actor
• – Death of Elliott Smith, 34, American musician
• – Death of Arturo Warman, 66, Mexican anthropologist, author, and politician

Focus On: (136108) Haumea

Basics

Class: BB-type dwarf planet/plutoid
Location: Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO)
Orbit length (approx): 281.07 years
Discovered: 7th March 2003, 00:40 UTC, from Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain
Notes: Third-largest known trans-Neptunian object, after Eris and Pluto.
Events at time of discovery:

• March 7 – Death of José Márcio Ayres, 49, Brazilian conservationist and zoologist, founded Brazilian rain forest reserves
• – Death of Manfred Durniok, 68, German film producer, director and screenwriter
• – Death of Monica Hughes, 77, Canadian SF author
• March 8 – Malta approves joining the European Union in a referendum.

Focus On: (38083) Rhadamanthus

Basics

Class: TNO
Location: Kuiper belt
Orbit length (approx): 241.61 years
Discovered: 17th April 1999, 03:19 UTC, from National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Arizona, by the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
Notes: Was originally thought to be a plutino but it turns out this is not the case.
Events at time of discovery:

• April 14 – Kosovo War: NATO warplanes repeatedly bomb ethnic Albanian refugee convoys for 2 hours over a 12-mile stretch of road, after mistaking them for Yugoslav military trucks, between Đakovica and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing at least 73 refugees.
• April 17 – Death of Julian Cole, 74, American mathematician
• – Death of Ahmad bin Mohamed Ibrahim, 82, Singaporean lawyer and law professor
• April 20 – Columbine High School massacre.

Focus On: (20000) Varuna

Basics

Class: IR-type cubewano, probably a dwarf planet
Location: Kuiper belt
Orbit length (approx): 280.76 years
Discovered: 28th November 2000 at 09:51 UTC, from Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona by Spacewatch (Robert McMillan)
Events at time of discovery:

• November 20 – Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru, faxes his resignation from a hotel room in Japan, having fled Peru after facing corruption charges. Fujimori would be officially removed from office by Congress on the 22nd.
• November 28 – Death of Gregg Barton, 88, American actor
• – Death of Robert Bentley, 93, American animator
• – Death of Liane Haid, 105, Austrian actress

Focus On: (6235) Burney

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.36 years
Discovered: 14th November 1987 at 10:29 UTC, from the Kushiro Observatory, Hokkaido, Japan, by Seiji Ueda and Hiroshi Kaneda
Events at time of discovery:

• November 14 – Birth of Sofia Assefa, Ethiopian middle-distance runner
• November 15 – In Braşov, Romania, workers rebel against the communist regime led by Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Focus On: (5143) Heracles

Basics

Class: O-type asteroid
Location: NEO, Apollo group
Orbit length (approx): 2.49 years
Discovered: 7th November 1991, 06:54 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, San Diego, California, by Carolyn Shoemaker
Notes: Approx 4.8km diameter, rare spectral type and binary.
Events at time of discovery:

• November 7 – The first report on carbon nanotubes is published by Sumio Iijima in Nature.
• – Birth of Felix Rosenqvist, Swedish race car driver
• – Death of Valery Aleksyev, 62, Soviet and Russian anthropologist
• – Death of Tom of Finland, 71, Finnish artist
• – Death of Ishak Haji Muhammad, 81, Malaysian writer
• – Death of Guillermo "Willy" Oddó, 48, Chilean musician

Focus On: (4580) Child

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.28 years
Discovered: 4th March 1989, 11:50 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, California, by Eleanor Francis Helin
Events at time of discovery:

• March 4 – Time Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner.
• – The Purley station rail crash in London leaves five people dead and 94 injured.
• – The first Australian Capital Territory elections are held.
• – Death of Tiny Grimes, 72, American jazz and R&B guitarist
• – Death of Viktor Nikiforov, 57, Soviet ice hockey player and Olympic gold medalist
• – Death of Edward Makuka Nkoloso, 69–70, member of Zambian resistance movement, created space programme

Focus On: (3811) Karma

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt, Karma family
Orbit length (approx): 4.14 years
Discovered: 13th October 1953, 22:19 UTC, Iso-Heikkilä Observatory, Turku, Finland, by Liisi Oterma
Events at time of discovery:

• October 12 – Birth of Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
• October 13 – Herman Wouk's play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial premièred at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California (at Plymouth Theatre, New York, the previous day).
• October 14 – Birth of Greg Evigan, American actor
• – Birth of Shelley Ackerman, American astrologer, actress, writer

Focus On: (3361) Orpheus

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Near Earth, Apollo group
Orbit length (approx): 1.33 years
Discovered: 24th April 1982, 07:12 UTC, from Cerro El Roble Astronomical Station, Chile, by Carlos Torres
Events at time of discovery:

• April 24 – German singer Nicole wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1982 (held in Britain) with the song Ein Bisschen Frieden.
• – Death of Ville Ritola, Finnish Olympic athlete
• – Birth of Kelly Clarkson, American singer-songwriter, talk show host
• – Birth of David Oliver, American hurdler

Focus On: (1923) Osiris

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Inner main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.80 years
Discovered: 24th September 1960, 09:01 UTC, from Leiden, Netherlands, by Ingrid and Cornelis Johannes van Houten (on photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory)
Events at time of discovery:

• September 22 – Birth of Scott Baio, American actor
• September 24 – The Howdy Doody Show presented its 2,343rd and final episode, after a run that started on NBC on December 27, 1947. After the marionette Howdy Doody, and host Buffalo Bob Smith, gave their farewells, Clarabell the Clown – who had never spoken – surprised his audience by saying, "Goodbye, kids."
• – USS Enterprise, the first atomic-powered aircraft carrier in history, and the largest ship ever built up to that time, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.
• September 25 – Birth of Eduardo Yáñez, Mexican film and television actor

Focus On: (1566) Icarus

Basics

Class: S-type/Q-type asteroid
Location: Near Earth, Apollo group
Orbit length (approx): 1.12 years
Discovered: 27th June 1949, 05:44 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, CA, by Walter Baade.
Notes: Icarus has an extremely eccentric orbit (0.83) and measures approximately 1.4 km in diameter. In 1968, it became the first asteroid ever observed by radar. Lowest numbered potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).
Events at time of discovery:

• June 27 – The 1949 Australian coal strike began.
• – The Liberal Party of Canada led by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent was easily returned to power in the Canadian federal election.
• – Czechoslovakia banned pastoral letters and meetings of Catholic church officials that were not approved by the government.
• – The science fiction TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers premiered.
• – Birth of Vera Wang, American fashion designer
• – Birth of Stephen Rucker, television and film composer

Focus On: (1388) Aphrodite

Basics

Class: K-type asteroid
Location: Outer main belt, Eos family
Orbit length (approx): 5.25 years
Discovered: 24th September 1935, 00:11 UTC, from Uccle Observatory, Belgium, by Eugène Delporte
Notes: Likely elongated, approximately 22km in diameter.
Events at time of discovery:

• September 24 – The five-power committee drafted a report admitting its efforts at mediation in the Abyssinia Crisis had failed and turned the matter back over to the League of Nations.
• – Earl W. Bascom and his brother Weldon produce the first night rodeo held outdoors under electric lights, at Columbia, Mississippi.
• September 29 – The London and North Eastern Railway's first A4 Class streamlined steam locomotive A4 2509 Silver Link makes her inaugural journey.
• – Birth of Mylène Demongeot, French actress
• – Birth of Jerry Lee Lewis, American rock & roll musician
• – Birth of Johnny Mathis, African-American singer

Focus On: (831) Stateira

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt, Baptistina family
Orbit length (approx): 3.29 years
Discovered: 20th September 1916, 22:08 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• September 16 – Birth of Frank Leslie Walcott, Barbadian labour leader
• September 17 – Birth of Mary Stewart, English-born fantasy and mystery writer
• September 20 – Brusilov Offensive: the most successful Russian military operation during the war.
• – Battle of Flers-Courcelette: New Zealand forces occupied Flers Trench where they repulsed a German counterattack.
• – New Zealand aviation pioneer Henry Wigram established the Canterbury Aviation Company in Christchurch to train pilots for service in World War I, promote local aviation defence and pioneer commercial aviation.
• – The Grand Theatre in Perth, Australia, opened to the public to showcase movies and live performances.
• – Birth of Malik Meraj Khalid, Pakistani politician
• September 21 – Birth of Zinovy Gerdt, Russian actor

Focus On: (490) Veritas

Basics

Class: Ch-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.66 years
Discovered: 4th September 1902 at 00:20 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• September 2 – Birth of Peter Pitseolak, Inuit photographer & author
• September 3 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt narrowly escaped death in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, after a streetcar collided with the carriage in which he was riding. Roosevelt's bodyguard, agent William Craig, was killed.
• September 4 – The first completely electric railway line, the Ferrovia della Valtellina, began operations in Italy.
• – The Absaroka National Forest was established in the U.S. state of Montana.
• – Edward Elgar's Opus 43, Dream Children, was played for the first time.
• events
• September 5 – Birth of Darryl F. Zanuck, American film producer and studio executive

Focus On: (474) Prudentia

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.84 years
Discovered: 13th February 1901 at 22:27 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• February 13 – William McKinley is formally declared the winner of the 1900 U.S. presidential election.
• – At the Mengo Hospital in Uganda, two doctors first note the outbreak of what would become an epidemic of African trypanosomiasis, or "sleeping sickness".
• – Birth of Paul Lazarsfeld, Austrian-American sociologist, founder of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University
• – Birth of Lewis Grassic Gibbon (pen name for James Leslie Mitchell), Scottish novelist

Focus On: (433) Eros

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Near Earth object, part of the Amor group
Orbit length (approx): 1.76 years
Discovered: 13th August 1898 (time unknown), from Berlin, Germany, by Carl Gustav Witt
Notes: Second-largest Near-Earth Object. Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, it became the first asteroid ever studied from orbit.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 11 – Birth of Maria Klenova, Russian marine geologist
• August 13 – Birth of Regis Toomey, American actor
• August 15 – Birth of Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet
• August 20 – The Gornergrat railway opens, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat in Switzerland.
• August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.

Focus On: (399) Persephone

Basics

Class: X-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.33 years
Discovered: 23rd February 1895, 21:43 UTC, by Max Wolf at Heidelberg

Some notable events around time of discovery:

• February 6 – Birth of Babe Ruth, American baseball player
• February 14 – Birth of Max Horkheimer, German philosopher, sociologist
• February 21 – Birth of Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist, Nobel Prize recipient
• February 25 – The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out.

Focus On: (269) Justitia

Basics

Class: Ld-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.23 years
Discovered: 21st September 2024 (time unknown), from Vienna, Austria, by Johann Palisa
Events at time of discovery:

• August 3 – Birth of Rupert Brooke, British war poet
• August 12 – Birth of Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 13 – Birth of Leopold Ružička, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 16 – Birth of Nadia Boulanger, French composer and composition teacher
• September 26 – Birth of William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, British aviator, first airman to receive the Victoria Cross
• September 28 – The 1887 Yellow River flood begins in China, killing 900,000 to 2,000,000 people.

Focus On: (193) Ambrosia

Basics

Class: Sk-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.19 years
Discovered: 28th February 1879 (time unknown), from Marseille, France, by Jérôme Eugène Coggia
Notes: Mean diameter 26km.
Events at time of discovery:

• February 22 – Birth of Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted, Danish chemist
• March 3 – United States Geological Survey is founded.
• March 14 – Birth of Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

Focus On: (164) Eva

Basics

Class: CX-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.27 years
Discovered: 12th July 1876 (time unknown), from Paris, France, by Paul-Pierre and Prosper-Mathieu Henry
Notes: Mean radius of just over 100km and the closest of this size to approach the orbit of Mars.
Events at time of discovery:

• July 3 – Birth of George Murray Levick, British Antarctic explorer and naval surgeon
• July 4 – The United States Centennial Exposition is celebrated across the country.
• July 12 – Birth of Max Jacob, French poet
• – Birth of Alphaeus Philemon Cole, American artist, engraver, etcher and supercentenarian
• July 13 – The prosecution of Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman, for using ritualist practices begins.