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Emily Dickinson, poetess, born today in 1830
Mahpiua-Luta (Red Cloud), chief of the Oglala Sioux, leader of the Lakota clan, died, today in 1909 - one of my great acting roles (eat your heart out Kenneth Branagh - whose birthday it happens to be, today in 1960). Stand absolutely still on stage for minute after minute after minute, and then - try not to miss your cue this time, Prashker - just six words, Oscar-bound each one: "My name is Chief Red Cloud". For a 14 year old, putting on the full "Indian" costume was the best part anyway.
The first "planet" outside our solar system was discovered, today in 1984... yes but which one, where, what's it called, what's it like - useless bot-information on these wikialmanacs... turns out, from the NASA website, that it still has to be verified, so maybe what they saw on the telescope was just the wing of a dead fly that someone squashed on the lens:
Using a relatively new technique called speckle interferometry, astronomers from the University of Arizona and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) have identified what they believe to be a planet similar to Jupiter, but with a much larger mass, orbiting the star Van Biesbroeck 8 (VB 8), which is located some 21 light‐years from earth in the Milky Way constellation Ophiuchus. Confirmation of this discovery, says the National Science Foundation, “would climax a centuries‐old quest to find such a body.”
Another group of astronomers from the U.S. Naval Observatory, however, says the object orbiting VB 8 cannot be classified as a planet but fits the definition of a Brown Dwarf. According to the Naval Observatory, “Brown Dwarfs are loosely defined as objects too low in mass to be undergoing thermonuclear fusion, and hence cannot be called stars, and yet massive enough to be generating energy on their own.”
Speckle interferometry - that's interfering, using speckles? Now I'm even more certain it was the remains of a squashed fly.
And then a star named Van Biesbroeck 8 - wasn't he the main character in Douglas Adams' "HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Maybe the whole thing is just a NASA prank.
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