02-18-2014 Astronomy anniversaries and new asteroids

Asteroid discoveries:

2014 CS14
Discoverer: unknown
Type: Outer Main Belt asteroid
Semimajor axis: 3.398 AU
Perihelion: 2.077 AU
Aphelion: 4.72 AU
Eccentricity: 0.389
Period: 6.26 Years
Inclination: 11.135 degrees

Today's astronomy anniversaries:

• Discoveries:
• 1930 (84 years ago)- Pluto is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh (see today's post).
•  Events:
• 1977 (37 years ago)- the shuttle Enterprise is carried on a Boeing 747 on its 'maiden flight'
• Births:
• None
• Deaths:
• 901 (1113 years ago)- Thābit ibn Qurra, and Iraqi Astronomer who estimated the length of the year to be 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 12 seconds (only about 15 minutes off!) dies in Baghdad
• 1957 (57 years ago)- Henry Norris Russell, an American astronomer who worked with Ejnar Hertzsprung to make the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, dies at Princeton, New Jersey.

  

  the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram Credit: atlasoftheuniverse.com

  
  

  
  

                 Coming up later today:

Comets, Centaurs, and Damocloids- oh my! The different ice-covered bodies of the Solar System.