02-20-2014 Astronomy anniversaries and new asteroids

Asteroid discoveries:

None today

Comet discoveries:

P/2014 C2 (STEREO)
Type: Parabolic comet
Perihelion: 0.489-0.534 AU
Aphelion: N/A
Eccentricity: 0.459-1.541
Period: N/A
Last perihelion: February 18th, 2014
Next perihelion: N/A

Today's astronomy anniversaries:

• Discoveries:
• 1999 (15 years ago)- (26375) 1999 DE9, a nearly-spherical trans-Neptunian object about 450 kilometers in diameter, is discovered by Chad Trujillo and Jane Luu.
• Events:
• 1965 (49 years ago)- Ranger 8 impacts the moon after successfully looking for Apollo landing sites.
• 1986 (28 years ago)- Mir, the world's first space station, is launched into orbit by Russia.
• 2013 (1 year ago)- Kepler-37b, the smallest known extrasolar planet (a bit larger than the Moon), is discovered by the Kepler telescope.
• Births:
•  1948 (66 years ago)- Andrew Fabian, a British astronomer who researched galaxies' black holes and X-ray sources, is born in Britain.
• Deaths:
• 1771 (243 years ago)- Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, a French astronomer who discovered M43, or de Mairan's nebula, dies in Paris, France.
• 2013 (1 year ago)- David S. McKay, an American astrobiologist who studied the possibility of life on Mars based on Martian meteorites like ALH 84001, dies at age 76.

            Coming up later today:
I'm not sure I'm doing anything, but I might work on the rings article I talked about yesterday.