Sprinkling of Stardust.Byline: The Register-Guard Feeling beat up, badgered and beleaguered be·lea·guer tr.v. be·lea·guered, be·lea·guer·ing, be·lea·guers 1. To harass; beset: We are beleaguered by problems. 2. To surround with troops; besiege. by the boom-boom-boom beat of bad news from Iraq, the latest scandals in Washington, D.C., and the eternal flailings of local officialdom? Perhaps you need a dose of Stardust star·dust n. 1. A dreamlike, romantic, or uncritical sense of well-being. 2. A cluster of stars too distant to be seen individually, resembling a dimly luminous cloud of dust. Not in scientific use. 3. . Unless you've been paying close attention, you may have missed recent news coverage of two historic and exciting developments in space exploration. Let's start with the return to Earth last Sunday of the Stardust space capsule, which completed a six-year, 2.9 billion-mile round trip through the tail of a comet (Astron.) a luminous train extending from the nucleus or body, often to a great distance, and usually in a direction opposite to the sun. See also: Tail orbiting the sun beyond Mars Beyond Mars is a Sunday comic strip written by Jack Williamson and drawn by Lee Elias. It ran from February 17, 1952 to May 13, 1955, at first as a full tabloid page and, near the end, as a half tab. . Scientists say they expect the teaspoonful tea·spoon·ful n. pl. tea·spoon·fuls Abbr. t. or tsp. The amount that a teaspoon can hold. Noun 1. of dust collected from comet Wild 2 to provide new insights on the origins of our solar system. If unlocking the secrets of the universe isn't enough to rouse you from the doldrums, consider another space adventure that's just beginning. After frustrating delays, NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. on Thursday finally launched its first-ever mission to the planet Pluto, the solar system's last planet to be visited by robot spacecraft. Shaped like a grand piano and powered by 24 pounds of plutonium, the craft will take nearly a decade to zip the 3.3 billion miles to Pluto, the smallest, most distant and mysterious planet in the solar system - in fact, some scientists argue that it's not a planet at all. That debate should be settled in July 2015, when the New Horizons mission is expected to arrive for a five-month study of Pluto's surface, atmosphere and moons. Legendary science fiction writer Ray Bradbury was asked in an interview last year how he felt when he saw NASA photographs from Mars. "Well," he replied, "the 12-year-old boy in me jumped up and down and yelled." In these difficult and trying times, Americans and other Earthlings can be grateful that NASA has given them two more excuses to once again be 12. |
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