Interesting Facts

15th June 1215 – King John of England put his seal to the Magna Carta. 1667 – The first human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys. 1752 – Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning is electricity. 1785 – Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight (1783), and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first-ever casualties of an air crash when their hot air balloon exploded during an attempt to cross the English Channel. 1844 – Charles Goodyear received a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber. 1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy. 1909 – Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa met at Lord's and formed the ICC (Imperial Cricket Conference). 1911 – Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation (IBM) was incorporated. 1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Brown complete the first nonstop transatlantic flight a...

26th / 27th January  The asteroid 2004 BL86,   which is  400 and 900 meters,  will sweep past the Earth at a distance of 1.2 million kilometers, three times the distance of the moon. It will be at its brightest around 4am Greenwich Mean Time - visible over Europe, Africa and most of the Americas.  Eastern Asia and Australia will get a chance to see the asteroid several hours earlier but it won't be as bright.

As if satellites weren't enough, we now have a speeding ball of rock hurtling past the Earth tonight. (The asteroid, romantically called Yu55, is about a quarter of a mile wide! It will pass inside the moon's orbit and come within 198,000 miles (319,000km) of Earth at 23.28GMT. Astronomers say this is the closest a tracked object this size has come to the planet, but it will pose no threat to the earth - this time. Seemingly, it's a regular visitor and there is a a one in 10m chance of its hitting Earth in the next century. Were it to strike, the collision would unleash the equivalent of several thousand megatonnes of TNT. Not to worry folks. We came in with a bang, but we'll probably go out with a whimper.)

A study from the University of Bristol shows that the Earth's surface became enriched with precious metals by impacting meteorites.  (Some of the oldest rocks on Earth, demonstrate that gold was delivered by meteorites in what they call, the time of the terminal bombardment, which occurred around 3.9 billion years ago. During this time, the Earth was hit with around 20 billion billion tonnes of asteroid material.  None of which landed in my back garden.)

A new telescope facility in Hawaii is searching for asteroids and comets which could threaten Earth. (The telescope, Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1), has a huge digital camera: 1,400 megapixels (1.4 gigapixels). It can photograph an area of the sky as large as 36 full Moons in a single exposure. Do you feel safer now?)