A noted 4-meter asteroid, 2008 TC 3, was observed in space on a collision course with Earth on 6 October 2008 and entered Earth's atmosphere the next day, striking a remote area of northern Sudan. It was the first time that a meteoroid had been observed in space and tracked prior to impacting Earth.
In the mean time, it is still possible to reconstruct in a limited manner the development of Thomas Paineâs religious beliefs. Born in England during the latter years of the Enlightenment he was first shaped by his Quaker father and Catholic mother.
Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration, wrote to his friend and signer of the Constitution John Dickinson that Paineâs Age of Reason was âabsurd and impiousâ; 4 Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration, described Paineâs work as âblasphemous writings against the Christian religionâ; 5 John Witherspoon said that Paine was âignorant of human ...