By Lyn Maccallum
Halley's Comet capsule
To mark the return of Halley's Comet, Australian Event Time Capsules is selling stainless steel canisters at $76 each, in which family memorabilia can be stored. In Sydney, 2062 canisters are on sale and, when the comet is at its brightest on April 11, they will be placed in a large time capsule outside the Queen Victoria Building. The capsule will be opened in 2062, when the comet returns.
Antarctica fossil find
Davis Base, Thursday: "You bloody beauty !" – that was the cry which echoed around a bleak rock-strewn Antarctic valley when Dr Pat Quilty realised he was holding the scientific equivalent of a winning Lotto ticket. In his hands was part of the fossilised skull of a dolphin that lived between four and five million years ago, when the valley floor lay 20 metres beneath a sea much warmer than today's Southern Ocean.
Role in Uranus link
Australia will play a crucial role in the first approach by a spacecraft to the planet Uranus early tomorrow morning. When the US Voyager 2 spacecraft flies by the planet at 5am Sydney time, the only communication link will be through the dish-like radio telescopes at Parkes in NSW and Tidbinbilla in the ACT. NASA arranged the schedule so that the Australian telescopes would monitor it as it passed Uranus.