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Nation & World Airborne astronomers observe meteor storm by Joseph Verrengia Associated PfSEss Aboard The Aria —Two thousand years ago, the Bible says, three wise men followed a shooting star that rose in the east and led them across Ute desert to a manger in Bethlehem. Now; 60 astronomen are waiting for a similarly awesome celestial sip. Packed inside a pair of U.S. jets, they hope to chase thousands of shooting Stars per hour streaking across the Holy Land and North Africa on Thursday, the peak of the annual Leonids mete or shower. Ironically, the scientists were able to see little through the aircrafts’ win dows during a preliminary flight Wednesday — they were so heavily scratched that looking through them was virtually useless. Instead, the scientists remamedglued to TV monitors flashing different views of the meteor storm as the jets sped from England to Israel cloaked in dark ness. The high-definition TV cameras produced such crisp, near 3-D images that the tops of clouds appeared spiked like a forest rather than flat and pufly. Distant Jupiter looked like a fat, lumi nescent pearl against the black velvet of space, and globs of star constellations glittered like gaudy costume jewelry. • To count the meteors streaking past, one team from California wore custom goggles that project the image of the night sky on tiny screens in front of their eyes like a virtual reality game. Every time a meteor streaks into view, an astronomer clicks a computer mouse and another Leonid is recorded. They also judgedeach meteor’s bril liance. At 3 am off tire coast of Greece, team members whooped and hollered when an exceptionally bright meteor leflapetsistenl glowing train across the constellation Eridanus. It was one of several Streaks of light and fireballs thai researchers record ed by time and astronomical location Wednesday on a bluzard erf post-it notes stuck to the aircraft’s walls. On Thursday, scientists used a va riety of instruments to measure the Leonids’ vigor, from the speed of in coming particles to whether they car ry organic compounds. Although the Leonids occur every November after Earth sweeps through the orbit of Comet Tempel-Tuttle, as tronomers are predicting a spectacular “storm” on Thursday of as many as thou sands per hour, Ural's because Earth is passing through the comet's refreshed wake soon after it looped around the sun during its 33-year orbit. And be cause of Jupiter’s gravitational tng, the comet may not swing quite so near Earth’s path again for a century. On Wednesday, scientists counted dozens of Leonids a full day before the anticipated peak, suggesting that Thurs day might bring a meteor storm of an intensity that millennia ago made peo ple cower in fear that the world was ending. “The peak storm will be a separate spike in this braid curve of increased activity a little more than halfway through this second night of observa tions,” said meteor expert Peter Jen niskens of the SET1 Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center. Tbe aircraft being used for die mis sion contain a variety of instruments and cameras to study the meteors. The FISTA, an NKC-l35 aircraft, has been modified with 20 upward-facing view ing ports. TheARIA, an EC-18 airplane, has telemetry equipment that allow re searchers to send images and data re garding comet counts to labs around the world. Research objectives for the mission include many measurements never be fore taken in airborne astronomy, in cluding real-time meteor counts and producing stereoscopic images of the meteors using bigti-defmition televi sion cameras. Such a stereoscopic view, obtained when instruments on both aircraft image a meteor, will provide the first ever three-dimensional model of me teor trajectories. Over Corsica and Italy early Wednesday, scientists in both aircraft simultaneously took unprecedented readings of the same flint meteors sput tering nearly 100 miles high in the at mosphere. "Our guess is that very volatile ma terials were boiling off, or it was losing heavy metals,” Jenniskens said. "That was a real thrill," said fane Houston of the California Meteor So ciety, who practiced for a month prior to the mission by watching videos of last year *s Leonids. “Wfe don’t ever want to take a break." Two more homeless men found dead in Denver by Steve Gutterman Associated Press Denver — The decapitated bodies of two apparently homeless men have been found less than a week after an-ests were made in five recent beating deaths of tran sients. The bodies were found Wednesday after a homeless person spotted one of the corpses in a weed-covered field be hind Union Station, Denver’s main rail road station. The unidentified men were believed to be homeless. Both were decapitated, Mayor Wellington Webb said. Webb said he thought the killings would stop after several youths were arrested in the beating death of a tran sient. “We were really taken aback when the other two bodies were found,” Webb said. He said some investigators theorize the killings resulted from a turf war be tween a group of “mall rats” — home less young people along the downtown 16th Street Pedestrian Mall — and old er transients who have been the taigets. Police Sgt. Tony Lombard said the latest deaths “certainly appear to be sim ilar” to those of five homeless men in the downtown area since September. But he said police cannot begin investigating the cases as connected until the most re cent are ruled honticides. Autopsies were expected to take a few days. The mayor asked U.S. Attorney Gen eral Janet Reno to provide FBI resources for the investigation. Del Maxfield, head of the Denver Rescue Mission, applauded Webb’s re quest, saying the homeless murders must be solved and stopped. “They need to do that, because these are people we’re talking about. It’s mur der. It’s no different from JonBenet [Ram sey] or anyone else,” he said. Two men and a 16-year-old boy were charged with first-degree murder last Fri day in one of the fatal beatings. The de fendants are part of the clique that hangs out around the pedestrian mall. Five others have been jailed on as sault charges for nonfalal beatings. Wednesday’s discovery has reignited fears in the downtown area’s huge home less community. The number of homeless seeking sliel ter at the Denver Rescue Mission every night has risen sharply this fall despite unusually warm temperatures, Maxfield said. “You can tell there’s a lot of concern now,” he said. “First there were three bodies, then four, tlien Cve, and now Uiere are two more. So it’s a pretty shocking thing for everybody.” r ' - A J • • NOW TEXTBOOKS CAN EXPAND YOUR WALLET AS WELL AS YOUR MIND. '■ - TEXTBOOKS.COM IS LOOKING FOR CAMPUS MANAGERS. I Earn a competitive salary while learning valuable marketing, sales and e-commerce skills. Campus Managers will be trained to manage people and host on-campus activities. We'll even give you credits for free textbooks. If you're interested, visit us at www.studentadvantage.com/textbooks.com. TEXTBOOKS.COM 7 Mr 6ALP, EMOTIONLESS PAeT HEPE WILE 6E PI6KIN6* UP . TH-E TVS TOP. 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