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(meteorobs) SPACE.com's Omission of Jenniskens' Data

Hi:
Barbara Wilson noted that our (SPACE.com's) 30-city listing of Bill Cooke's
compiled Leonid predictions failed to include Peter Jenniskens' data. She's
right. I thought the story of the omission might be of interest, since it
illustrates how fast the science of meteor forecasting is changing -- even
in the days leading up to this year's shower.

Cooke compiled (or updated) his original tables in html shortly after I
alerted him on Oct. 30 to the fact that Asher & McNaught had lowered their
forecast. (David Asher told me the change was made in recent weeks to add an
"aging parameter" for the dust streams based on work by Esko Lyytinen).

Bill was kind enough to let me know about the 30-city forecast he then
posted a day or two later, which involved just 3 forecast groups. Seeing
great value in that for our readers, we posted the tables about 24 hours
later on SPACE.com. Bill then revised his tables on or before 11/2 to
include Jenniskens' data (whose revised estimates were just published the
week prior!). Bill also at that time put the tables into PDF format.

It was labor intensive to get the tables into our publishing system -- in
fact, we almost had to kill the idea. And, of course, we're still working
feverishly to produce several more Leonids stories that will roll out in
coming days. Anyway, we decided not to update the tables, and so we included
a note on our main Leonids page about the new Jenniskens data. My apologies
to Peter for our inability to handle this.

The flurry of changes and new information makes our efforts less than
perfect, but it sure is exciting from where I sit. It feels as though years
of effort by four research groups may come to a head Nov. 18, and I can't
wait to see which of the four predictions proves most accurate. (I'm
secretly pulling for Jenniskens' 4,200, of course, and clear skies.)

cheers,
rob

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Robert Roy Britt / Senior Science Writer / SPACE.com
rbritt@hq.space.com
Leonids Page:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/leonids_2001.html
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