Master storyteller Carl Sagan died last night (December 30, 1996) at the age of 62 after a two-year fight with bone marrow disease. Sagan became world-famous after his acclaimed PBS documentary, "Cosmos", and also won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, "Dragons of Eden". Sagan was deeply enthralled by the possibilty of life outside of Earth and had currently been serving as professor of astronomy at Cornell University. His passing will be a deep loss to the scientific community.
The Galileo spacecraft reached Jupiter on December 7, 1995 after trips past Earth, Venus and Gaspra. A year later Galileo is continuing to produce spectacular images and new theories about the Jovian system. For more information on moon encounters, check out the following pages:
Comet Hyakutake has briefly stolen the show from the upcoming Comet Hale-Bopp, but nobody is complaining. Japanese astronomer Yuji Hyakutake discovered the comet using binoculers in January, 1996 and it will pass as close as .1 AU on March 25. I was able to see the comet on the evening of March 22 and it was spectacular. A well defined nucleus could be seen with an 8" Dobsonian and the tail was naked-eye visible through a few degrees of sky. For more information, visit the following pages:
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is collecting signatures through January 1, 1997 to place on the Cassini mission to Saturn. If you would like your name flown (for free) to the outer solar system, more information can be found at :
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