llege o study explosion rings at ts nuclear test sitein Nevada.  t MeteorCrater to suggest volcanic activity, but t tributions of otuff—anomalous fine silicas and magnetites principally—t suggested an impact from space.

    Intrigued, o study t in ime.

    orking first er e David Levy, Sematic survey of tem. t one ory in California looking for objects,asteroids primarily, ories carried t.

    “At time arted, only sligire course of astronomical observation,” Ser in a television intervieronomers in tietury essentially abandonedtem,” tention urned to tars, the galaxies.”

    S t tdeal more—than anyone had ever imagined.

    Asteroids, as most people knos orbiting in loose formation in a beltbeter. In illustrations ting in a jumble, butin fact tem is quite a roomy place and teroid actually a million miles from its nearest neigely eroids tumbling t t to be probably not lessto be planets t never quite made it, oo ttling gravitational pull of Jupiter, hem from coalescing.

    eroids  detected in t day of tury by a Sicilian named Giuseppi Piazzi—t to be planets, andt t took some inspired deductions by tronomer illiam o  t t sized but muceroids—Latin for “starlike”—unate ast like stars at all. Sometimes noely called planetoids.

    Finding asteroids became a popular activity in turyabout a t no one ematically recordingt en become impossible to knopopped into vie ed earlier and t track of. Bytime, too, astrop feronomers ed to devoteto anytoids. Only a feronomers, n