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: (55) Pandora

Basics

Class: M-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.58 years
Discovered: 10th September 1858 (time unknown), from Albany, NY, by George Mary Searle
Events at time of discovery:

• August 16 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable
• October 3 – Birth of Eleonora Duse, Italian actress
• October 19 – Birth of George Albert Boulenger, Belgian naturalist
• October 27 – Birth of Theodore Roosevelt
• November 16 – The 2,400,000th day of the Epoch of the Julian day is reached.