10 Rock

Ten years ago tonight, an astronomer found a moving blip in his images. Not long after that, he found another one as well. I don't know what he was thinking at that moment, though I imagine the thrill of discovery never goes away, no matter how many asteroids you discover, even when the whole idea of the project is to find them. Initially called 2000 WB63 and 2000 WG11, he later named these asteroids 106537 McCarthy and 165347 Philplait. The first is named after Robynn "Swoopy" McCarthy, and the second... well, that's obvious enough. Jeff Medkeff was an astronomer, an educator, a skeptic, and a really decent guy. He contributed to the discovery or monitoring of thousands of asteroids before his untimely death in 2008. I was fortunate enough to get a chance to hang a bit with him at a skeptic conference or two, and I had a really ...