Hey Holmes
Astronomers around the world are tossing exclamation points right and left these past couple days, thanks to a sudden phenomenon out in space. These are folks who spend countless hours staring into the cosmos and recording data in extreme minutia, so when they start dispensing demonstrative punctuation, it makes sense to take notice.
It all has to do with Comet 17P Holmes, normally just a dim light for big telescopes, that surprisingly turned into a very bright light, visible even to the naked eye, around mid-week.
So now I’ll have to dig out my trusty old star dial, queue up Perseus and get me a look see at all this hubbub. That’ll have to do, because there’s just never a Celestron NexStar 4SE around when you need one. [ via kottke ]