RECENT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES (and assorted others)
Compiled by William Stoertz

June 13, 1983 -- Pioneer 10 spacecraft became first manmade 
object to travel beyond the solar system. (Pears Cyclopaedia)

October 18, 1989 -- Probe Galileo launched from space shuttle 
Atlantis to fly by Venus (Feb. 10, 1990), asteroid Gaspra (Oct. 
29, 1991), asteroid Ida (Aug. 28, 1993), send probe down to 
Jupiter (July 12-Dec. 7, 1995), and fly by Jupiter's moon 
Europa (Feb. 20, 1997). Expected to fade out November 1997.

May 1990 -- Hubble Space Telescope launched. Named after 
Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), who discovered the expanding 
universe. Cost 2 billion dollars. But had a flawed mirror, unable 
to focus, and had to be repaired by spacewalks. (See Dec. 1993)

December 1993 -- Hubble Space Telescope mirror repaired and 
equipment updated by spacewalks of astronauts from shuttle 
Endeavour. Proceeded to take incredible pictures of the cosmos, 
with 10 times greater resolution. (Source: Time, Nov. 20, 1995, 
p. 44-52) (See May 1990)

December 1, 1995 -- Existence of "brown dwarf" stars, not 
generating enough energy for nuclear fusion, confirmed by 
Hubble Space Telescope photographing Gliese 229B, 19 light-years 
distant.

January 1996 -- Scientists in Center for Nuclear Research 
(Europe) make first antihydrogen atoms, followed in November 
by physicists at Fermi Accelerator in Illinois.

July 1996 -- Researchers in Edinburgh, Scotland, successfully 
clone an adult sheep, the first mammal ever cloned, long 
thought impossible.

August 8, 1996 -- Announcement by NASA of discovery of 
primitive cellular life in meteorite ejected from Mars which 
landed in Antarctica 13,000 years ago. Based on this, President 
Clinton calls for stepping up the space program to send two 
probes to Mars, due to land July 4, 1997. Russia launches 
Mars-96 probe on November 16, 1996, due to arrive September 
12, 1997, but it fails to reach earth orbit.

November 29, 1996 -- Asteroid 4179 Toutatis misses Earth by 
3 million miles. (Newsweek, Dec. 25, 1995)

July 4, 1997 -- U.S. space probe Pathfinder lands on Mars, 
takes 3-D pictures; rover explores surface. Evidence of vast 
flood about a billion years ago. (See Dec.2, 1971; Aug.8, '96; 
Nov.16, '96; Sep.12, 1997)

October 9, 1997 -- Hubble Space Telescope discovers the most 
powerful star ever detected, pouring out 10 million times more 
energy than the sun, located 25,000 light-years from the earth, 
near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. (Source: Moscow 
Times, Oct. 9, 1997)

October 1997 -- Two more moons of Uranus discovered (total 
17), in orbits radically out of the ecliptic plane. (Source: 
Moscow Tribune, Nov. 4, 1997)

October 1997 -- Dmitri and Nadezhda Zima discover the key to 
decipher the encoded chronology of Nostradamus' (lived 1503-
1566) prophetic writings "Centuries".

December 6, 1997 -- Asteroid 1997 XF11 discovered by 
University of Arizona Spacewatch. Will make nearest approach 
to Earth on October 26, 2028 at radius 48,000 km, error margin 
288,000 km. Size 1-1/2 km, potential impact energy of 320,000 
megatons of TNT. (Source: Moscow Times, Mar. 13, 1998)

February 5, 1998 -- It was discovered that a Bantu man who 
lived in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, had died of AIDS in 
1959, indicating that the virus first infected people in the 1940s 
or early '50s. Earlier it was discovered a family in Norway 
caught AIDS in the late 1960s. The AIDS disease first became 
known in 1981 among homosexuals and intravenous drug 
users. By 1998 it had infected over 40 million people 
worldwide. (Source: Moscow Times, Feb. 5, 1998) (See Sept. 
5, 1981)

February 1998 -- Analyzing starlight from 14 supernovas 7 
billion light-years distant by means of the Hubble Space 
Telescope and ground observatories in Hawaii, Australia and 
Chile, scientists ascertained antigravity effect accelerating the 
universe's expansion, contrary to conventional theory of a 
universe coasting outward from the Big Bang and gradually 
decelerating due to gravity. (Source: Moscow Times, Feb. 28, 
1998)

April 7, 1998 -- At National Astronomy Meeting in Britain, 
new calculations by Michael Merrifield and Robert Olling 
suggest that the Milky Way Galaxy is 10 to 15 percent smaller 
than previously thought (the earth was 28,000 light-years from 
center of galaxy). (Source: Newsweek, Apr. 13, 1998, p. 43)

April 16, 1998 -- NASA team of astronomers at Keck 
Observatory in Hawaii and another team from Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (Cambridge, MA) and U. 
of Florida at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile 
simultaneously observe young star HR4796 (10 million yrs old, 
220 lt.-yrs distant) with infrared telescopes and find disk of gas 
and dust apparently coalescing into planets, which are sweeping 
clean regions of the orbiting cloud, upholding planetary 
accretion theory. (Source: article by John Wilford of N.Y. 
Times Service, in Int'l Herald Tribune, Apr. 23, 1998)

June 1, 1998 -- Planet TMR-1C spotted leaving two young 
(300,000 years old) stars in constellation Taurus (450 light-
years away), 2-3 times Jupiter's mass, now 130 billion miles 
from its parent stars, and connected by a filament of light. 
Photographed by Hubble Space Telescope, discovered by Susan 
Tereby and colleagues. (Source: Sharon Begley article "Hey, 
look what I found", Newsweek, Jun. 8, 1998, p. 75)

August 17, 1998 -- Liverworts are discovered to be the first 
plants to have left the seas and become established on land 470 
million years ago (Ordovician period). They are descended 
from algae, and are the ancestors of all land plants. This is 
indicated by studying intron sequences at the beginning of 
various genes common to all plants.

August 18, 1998 -- Astronomers announce the discovery that 
the halo surrounding the Milky Way consists largely of black 
holes twice as numerous as the stars in the galaxy. These dark 
objects called MACHOs ("massive compact halo objects") may 
account for half of the dark matter of the universe. They act as 
magnifying lenses, brightening distant stars when they cross 
their line of sight. 22 such instances were sighted, indicating 
400 billion MACHOs. Furthermore neutrinos were recently 
discovered to carry mass, making up an additional 1% of the 
mass of the universe. (Source: ABCNEWS.com, Aug. 17, 
1998)


OTHER UNDATED DISCOVERIES

Quarks, from which protons and neutrons formed 10E-05 seconds 
after the Big Bang.

Supernovas, which synthesize heavier elements by means of 
neutrinos, then dispersing them into the interstellar medium.

Stars throughout the universe are discovered to exist almost as 
commonly in pairs as single stars; quadruple stars are not 
uncommon; but triplets are very rare, because of gravitational 
expulsion. (See Scientific American in 1997)

The first planets are observed (indirectly) circling other stars, at 
a distance of 47 light-years from the earth. The first planet 
directly observed was discovered on June 1, 1998.

Continental drift, and all the other related tectonic or 
geophysical phenomena. Furthermore, continental drift appears to 
take place on other planets and moons as well.

The first life is found to date back to 3.5 billion years ago, 
just one billion years after the formation of the earth, and is 
supposed to have formed based on RNA in complexes with clay.

Three Kingdoms of living things are now distinguished: Archaea (extremophiles), Akarya (bacteria), Eukarya (nucleated cells). 
Examples are the following:
Bacteria (Akarya): Aquifex, Thermotoga, Flavobacteria, 
Gram-positive bacteria, Purple bacteria, Cyanobacteria.
Archaea (extremophiles): Methanopyrus, Thermococcus, 
Methanococcus, Thermoplasma, Methanobacterium, Halobacterium, Pyrodictium, Thermoproteus.
Eukarya: Diplomonads, Microsporidia, Flagellates, Entamoebae, 
Slime molds, Ciliates, Plants, Fungi, Animals.

470 million years ago -- Liverworts were the first plant life to 
appear on land, and all other land plants descended from them.

69 million years ago -- The extinction of the dinosaurs was 
caused by an asteroid measuring about 15 km in diameter which 
struck the present-day Yucatan Peninsula, leaving its trace as 
an iridium-rich layer in sediments throughout the world.

4.4 million years ago -- Oldest hominid, Ardipithecus ramidus, 
discovered in Ethiopia and named by Tim White of Berkeley 
and Berhane Asfaw of Ethiopia. (National Geographic, Feb. 
1997, pp. 88)

at least 4.15 million years ago -- Humans and chimps diverged. 
55 differences between human and chimpanzee mitochondrial 
DNA, 27 between human and Neanderthal, and an average of 8 
differences among contemporary humans. (Source: article "Bad 
Neighbors" by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Time, Jul. 21, 1997, p. 
78)

3.6 million years ago -- Fully bipedal primate footprints left in 
wet volcanic ash on Tanzania's Laetoli plain, discovered by 
Mary Leakey's team of paleoanthropologists in 1978. (Source: 
National Geographic, Feb. 1997, pp. 72-80)

690,000 to 550,000 years ago -- Neanderthals split off from 
ancestors of modern humans and never reconciled. Determined 
from DNA of mitochondrion from fossil arm bone. (Source: 
article "Bad Neighbors" by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Time, Jul. 21, 
1997, p. 78)

ca. 300,000 to 150,000 years ago -- "Mitochondrial Eve", the 
common woman ancestor who passed her mitochondria down 
to all living human beings. Determined by molecular-clock 
estimates of mitochondrial DNA. (Source: Rebecca Cann, Mark 
Stoneking, and Allan Wilson of University of California, 
Berkeley, Nature, Jan. 1, 1987, p. 31)

100,000 to 35,000 years ago -- Neanderthal man, nearly 
identical to today's Homo sapiens, except for linebacker build, 
lack of chin, and protruding brows. Found from Europe to 
Central Asia. Buried their dead with care, looked after sick and 
lame. Did not mingle nor interbreed with Cro-Magnons. 
(Source: Newsweek, May 27, 1996, p. 48)

22,000 years ago -- Finno-Ugaric hunters lived in small 
settlements of 10-15 people around Moscow, hunting wooly 
mammoths. (Source: Moscow Times, Oct. 14, 1997)

22,000 years ago -- Australian aboriginal tools and rock 
carvings at Jimnium in Northern Territory. Previously wrongly 
dated at 116-176,000 years old. Dr. Richard Roberts dated at 
10-22,000 years using thermoluminescence of sand grains and 
carbon-14. (Source: Times, May 28, 1998)

12,500 years ago -- Archaeological evidence of American 
Indians at Monte Verde, near Chilean village of Pelluco. 
Charcoal, tent stakes, mastodon tusks, stone flakes, wood lance, 
fire drill board. Carbon-14 dating (plus or minus 250 years), 
ranging from 13,565 to 11,920 years from different sites. 
(Source: National Geographic, Oct. 1997, pp. 92-99)

9,000-8,000 BCE -- One of the most ancient farming villages in 
the world, uncovered by Iraqi archaeologists since 1991 in 
Kurdistan. Village of houses of dried bricks. (Source: Moscow 
Tribune, Feb. 8, 1997)

ca. 7,000 BCE -- "Cheddar Man" from southwest England. 
Britons appear to come from a race of hunter-gatherers who 
later turned to farming. Mitochondrial DNA extracted from a 
molar tooth compared with living British volunteers. (Source: 
Moscow Times, Mar. 11, 1997)

ca. 9,000 ago -- Remains of Western European Caucasoid man 
found 1990 in riverbed near Kennewick, Washington, USA, by 
Army Corps of Engineers, who turned them over to Umatilla 
Indian Tribe for burial according to law. Legal battle between 
scientists and government. (Source: BBC, Oct. 4, 1997)

October 23, 4004 BCE -- Creation date reckoned by James 
Ussher, Anglican Primate of All Ireland, in 17th century.

April 2, 2369 B.C. -- Noah's Ark supposed to have landed on 
top of Mt. Ararat. Buried by eternal snow, it remained whole 
until 1840 when it broke up. Spotted in 1916 by aviators 
Zabolotskiy and Lesin. Tsar Nikolai II sent an expedition of 
Russian soldiers who found the ark. Italian Angelo Palego, 
who dedicated his life to study the Ark, visited it in August 
1989. However, Kurdish rebels captured him and his team. He 
plans new ascents by helicopter. Noah blessed by Father among 
34 couples on June 13, 1998. (Chronology quoted by Oleg 
Shevtsov in Komsomolskaya Pravda, Aug. 14, 1997)

*NOTE by WSS: The last two entries are still under debate.