Brian Marsden dies at 73; astronomer who tracked comets and asteroids
Saturday, November 20, 2010 - 01:00
in Astronomy & Space
The director emeritus of the Minor Planet Center once famously and wrongly warned of an asteroid collision with Earth, helped demote Pluto and accurately predicted the return of Comet Swift-Tuttle.Astronomer Brian G. Marsden, a comet and asteroid tracker who stood sentinel to protect the Earth from collisions with interplanetary rocks and other remnants of the solar system's creation, died Thursday of cancer at Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington, Mass. He was 73.