02-21-2014 Astronomy anniversaries and new asteroids

Asteroid discoveries:

None today

Comet discoveries:

C/2014 C3 (NEOWISE)
Type: Halley-type comet
Perihelion: 1.712-1.872 AU
Aphelion: 1.66-29.606 AU
Eccentricity: 0.62-0.969
Period: error-60.2 years
Last perihelion: January 3rd, 2014
Next perihelion: September 22nd, 2039


Today's astronomy anniversaries:

• Discoveries:
• None
• Events:
• 1972 (42 years ago)- Luna 20, an unmanned Russian sample-return mission, successfully lands on the Moon.
• Births:
• 1964 (50 years ago)- Mark and Scott Kelly, two identical twins who were both astronauts on STS-108, STS-121, STS-124, STS-134, and STS-103, STS-118, Expedition 25/26 (Soyuz TMA-01M) respectively, are born in Orange, New Jersey.
• Deaths:
• 1788  (226 years ago)- Johann Georg Palitzsch, a German astronomer who recovered Comet Halley after Edmond Halley predicted its return in 1758, dies at age 65.
• 1938 (76 years ago)- George Ellery Hale, an American astronomer who invented the Spectroheliograph and has an asteroid, Lunar crater, and Martian crater named after him, dies in Pasadena, California.

            Coming up later today:
Ring of the solar system (I'm working on it right now!)