Veritas and 490 Veritas - Ottawa, Ontario
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Weathervane
N 45° 25.293 W 075° 42.328
18T E 444807 N 5030023
490 Veritas was created in one of the largest asteroid-on-asteroid collisions of the past 100 million years. Veritas, the Goddess of Truth, is a statue located in front of the Supreme Court building, in Ottawa, Ontario.
Waymark Code: WMH8AB
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 06/06/2013
Views: 24
490 Veritas
"490 Veritas is a large asteroid, which may have been involved in one of the more massive asteroid-asteroid collisions of the past 100 million years. It was discovered by German astronomer Max Wolf on September 3, 1902 at Heidelberg.
At 115 and 125 km in diameter, Veritas and 92 Undina are the largest of the 300-strong Veritas family of asteroids. David Nesvorný of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder traced the orbits of these bodies back in time, and calculated that they formed in a collision of a body at least 150 km in diameter with a smaller asteroid some 8 million years ago. Veritas and Undina would have been the largest fragments of that collision.
Substantiating Nesvorný's estimate, Kenneth Farley et al. found evidence in sea-floor sediments of a fourfold increase in the amount of cosmic dust reaching Earth's surface, which began 8.2 million years ago and tapered off over the next million and a half years. This is one of the largest increases in dust deposits of the past 100 million years.
The suspected Veritas collision would have been too far from Jupiter for the fragments to have been slung into a collision course with Earth. However, solar radiation would have caused the resulting dust to drift inward to Earth orbit over a time span consistent with the record of dust in the ocean sediment.
Today continuing collisions among Veritas-family asteroids are estimated to send five thousand tons of cosmic dust to Earth each year, 15% of the total."
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Veritas - Goddess of Truth
"In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white.[1]
Veritas is also the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. In Greek mythology, Veritas was known as Aletheia.
This Latin word "veritas" now appears in the mottos of many colleges and universities. It is typically capitalized in mottos (as "Veritas") for being an ideal (such as: Truth, Kindness and Beauty). There is a private university of art and architecture in Costa Rica called "Universidad Veritas" (es:Universidad Veritas). Veritas is the motto of Harvard University, Providence College, Knox College (Illinois), Bilkent University, the University of California - Hastings College of the Law, Drake University, as well as the Dominican Order of the Roman Catholic Church, and Providence College, which is run by the Dominicans.
Caldwell College in Caldwell, New Jersey issues a "Veritas Award" each year in honor of the Dominican Sisters who founded and administer the college. "Veritas" is included in the motto of Indiana University and Yale University, Lux et Veritas ("Light and Truth"). It also appears on the California State University's motto Vox Veritas Vita ("Speak the Truth as a way of Life"). "Veritas vos liberabit" ("The Truth Will Set You Free") is the motto of The Johns Hopkins University. Veritas Curat ("Truth Cures") is the motto of the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, a prominent medical school in Puducherry, India. Howard University, in Washington, DC, goes by the motto "Veritas et Utilitas", translated to "Truth and Service". Camp Veritas is the name of a Roman Catholic young adult camp with religious orders involved."
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