In Memoriam: Jack Horkheimer 1938-2010

Astronomer. Host of the weekly five-minute PBS series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer (originally Star Hustler)

“When you have a small object traveling at an incredibly high velocity, slamming into the earth's atmosphere, the friction makes the speeding object heat up so much that it can internally fracture and turn into what we call a fireball.”

(If you've never seen Horkheimer's show, you have absolutely no idea with how much enthusiasm he would have said the above quote. I know some of you who read this blog like to view the cosmos as evidence of a higher power. I'll never go that far, but for this pudgy guy wearing a sweater and bad toupee to last 30 years on TV in this otherwise slick entertainment universe of ours--well, thank God for PBS--KJ)