David J. Tholen is an American astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii, who specializes in planetary and solar system astronomy. Tholen has discovered a number of asteroids, including the lost 1998 DK₃₆, which may be an Apohele asteroid, and 2004 XZ₁₃₀, which certainly is; in fact, it has the smallest semimajor axis and aphelion distance among the known asteroids. He won the H. C. Urey Prize in 1990. 253 Mathilde, a C-type asteroid. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... November 3 is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 58 days remaining. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in leap years). ... (24978) 1998 HJ151, also written as (24978) 1998 HJ151, is a cubewano. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... April 28 is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 247 days remaining. ... Categories: American astronomers | Vietnamese Americans | Women in science | Astronomers stubs ... Chadwick A. Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech researching the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt and the outer solar system. ... David C. Jewitt is a Professor of astronomy at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... February 23 is the 54th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... July 18 is the 199th day (200th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 166 days remaining. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... July 18 is the 199th day (200th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 166 days remaining. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... April 2 is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 273 days remaining. ... Close approach of Apophis on April 13, 2029 The white bar indicates uncertainty in the range of positions 99942 Apophis (99942) Apophis (previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... June 19 is the 170th day of the year (171st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 195 days remaining. ... Roy A. Tucker is an American astronomer. ... Fabrizio Bernardi (born April 9, 1972, in Pomezia near Rome, Italy) is an Italian astronomer. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... January 8 is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... July 18 is the 199th day (200th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 166 days remaining. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... January 8 is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... July 19 is the 200th day (201st in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 165 days remaining. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... March 8 is the 67th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (68th in leap years). ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a person whose area of interest is astronomy or astrophysics. ... The Institute for Astronomy (IfA) is a research unit within the University of Hawaii system, led by Dr. Rolf-Peter Kudritzki as Director. ... This article is about the University of Hawaii system. ... Planetary science, also known as planetology or planetary astronomy, is the science of planets, or planetary systems, and the solar system. ... Major features of the Solar System (not to scale, from left to right): Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, a comet, Jupiter, Ceres which lies in the asteroid belt, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth & Moon, and Mars. ... 253 Mathilde, a C-type asteroid. ... 1998 DK36 (also written 1998 DK36) is possibly the first Apohele asteroid (asteroid that is always closer to the Sun than Earth) detected. ... Apohele asteroids are a subclass of Aten asteroids. ... The Harold C. Urey Prize is awarded annually by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. ... ...

He co-discovered the asteroid 99942 Apophis (previously known as 2004 MN₄). This asteroid will closely approach the earth on 13 April 2029 and very briefly appear as bright as a third magnitude star. Close approach of Apophis on April 13, 2029 The white bar indicates uncertainty in the range of positions 99942 Apophis (99942) Apophis (previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a... April 13 is the 103rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (104th in leap years). ... Centuries: 20th century - 21st century - 22nd century Decades: 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s - 2020s - 2030s 2040s 2050s 2060s 2070s Years: 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 - 2029 - 2030 2031 2032 2033 2029 (MMXXIX) is a common year starting on Monday. ...

Comet Hale-Bopp image forgery

In 1995, Tholen obtained images of the newly-discovered comet Hale-Bopp at a time when the comet was moving very slowly with respect to the background stars, thus permitting the red- green- and blue-filtered images to be combined into a color composite without the background stars appearing as separately colored dots. This color composite image was made publicly accessible via his Institute's web site. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Comet Hale-Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) was probably the most widely observed comet of the 20th century, and one of the brightest seen for many decades. ...

Later, Olivier Hainaut discovered that this image was nearly identical to the one being discussed by late-night radio host Art Bell and one of his guests, Courtney Brown, who claimed that the image proved the existence of an unnatural object following the comet, something supposedly seen by those who had learned how to engage in the technique of "remote viewing". The image provided to Bell by Brown, and eventually made public on Bell's web site, did indeed show an object next to the comet that did not appear in archival images of the sky. In reality, the original image obtained by Tholen had been digitally altered, presumably by taking the image of a star near the edge of the frame, adding it to image next to the comet, and then trimming away the outer edges of the frame. Arthur Bell III (c. ... Courtney Brown, Ph. ... In the field of parapsychology, remote viewing is a neutral term for extra-sensory perception, usually performed during experiments in which the percipient tries to describe a distant location or the environs of a distant agent. ...

Tholen and Hainaut exposed the fraud by producing the original image, which showed no such additional object. Nevertheless, some people maintained that Brown's version was the original image and that Tholen had removed the additional object from the one on the Institute's web site. Indeed, the Heaven's Gate cult was so convinced that the additional object was a spaceship coming to take them away from Earth that they committed mass suicide. The logo used by the Heavens Gate group Heavens Gate was the name of a UFO religion co-led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, both now deceased. ... Mass suicide occurs when a number of people kill themselves together with one another or for the same reason and is usually connected to a real or perceived persecution. ...

Usenet reputation

Tholen has been posting to Usenet since 7 December 1989 [1], and has become renowned for his contributions to Usenet discussion groups, particularly rec.music.classical and comp.os.os2.advocacy. Many regulars on those discussion groups regard him to be a net.kook. In fact, Tholen has received a number of "kook awards". For example, in March 1998, he was named Kook of the Month (KOTM), and, in February 2003, Clueless Newbie of the Month, though Tholen himself vigorously denies these titles were fairly awarded. Tholen's Usenet style is unique, characterized by relentlessness and the repetitive use of certain phrases, such as "classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim"[2], "how ironic"[3], "note: no response"[4], and "non sequitur"[5]. His posts are so prolific and the use of these phrases so regular and formulaic that many have suspected his posts are generated by an Internet bot. Though this is almost certainly false, one Usenet contributor has created a CGI program called "The Tholenizer" that interposes Tholen-like responses into any text. Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed bulletin board system (BBS). ... December 7 is the 341st day (342nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A net. ... March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... alt. ... February is the second month of the calendar year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Internet bots, also known as web robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. ... The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server. ...

External links

• Homepage
• Tholen responds to faked images
• The Tholenizer