VESTNIK. AIM
Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order Of The State Of Texas, Founded 1997 BENEVOLENCE VOLUME 61 — NO. 41
BROTHERHOOD
HUMANITY Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 with Undeliverable Copies to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P.O. Box 100, Temple, Texas molt.
OCTOBER 10, 1973
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK A letter, in the Youth Section, this issue, informs us that the youth of Lodge No. 9, Snook, will be combining fun and service this Halloween when they march for UNICEF. They will be asking for wrappers from various products you use in your home. Sister Jan Schoenemann lists the articles from which they seek the wrappers and gives a place to leave them, should they for some reason fail to call at your home. This is a worthwhile project and we hope that the residents of Snook will give the youngsters their full cooperation. In March of this year, 1973 Astronomer LuboA Kohoutek, born in Czechoslovakia, was looking for astero ids with the Hamburg Observatory's 31-inch Schmidt telescope when he discovered a great comet some 500 million miles away from the sun or about in the vicinity of the orbit of Jupiter. The well-known Halley's Comet, which was last seen in 1910 (and also observed by your editor's father), was not spotted until it was about 300 million miles from the sun. Kohoutek's comet (as it will be known) is much brighter than Halley's comet. Although the nucleus of a typical comet (which is thought to be composed of frozen water, methane and ammonia, as well as dust particles) is only about a mile in
Halley's comet; its tail could arc across some 30 degrees or one-sixth of the evening sky. Astronomers say the onrushing giant "may well be the comet of the century."
October
7-13
ewspapers: ...Your Foundation for
Free Choice REMEMBER, ,'YOUR VESTNIK IS A FREE PRESS PUBLICATION! diameter, Kohoutek's comet seems to be a giant up to 15 miles across. At the present time it is racing toward the sun to be nearest it by the end of this year, 1973. In December it will be the brightest object in the predawn sky, providing early risers with an unusual celestial display. The newly discovered comet may eventually be 50 times as brilliant as
Although the comet is now visible only as a speck of light in telescopes, solar radiation will boil off gases and dust from the nucleus as it approaches closer to the sun. In the "solar wind", the stream of electrically charged particles that continually radiate from the sun, the material from the nucleus should be swept into the characteristic comet's tail. As it reacts with the charged particles, the tail will begin to glow brightly — so brightly, in fact, that astronomers believe that the comet could be visible to the naked eye in daylight just before its close approach to the sun in December, and even more spectacularly in the evening during January as it begins to move away. Perhaps the most remarkable sight will be seen by observers in Latin America. On the day before Christmas, an eclipse (when the moon, at one of its more distant points from the earth in its orbit, when it appears slightly smaller in the sky, eclipses all of the sun except a glowing outer rim) will occur over South America. This could create a wonderful display: a fiery ring of sunlight, the