skeet-shooting n.— «A special technique, known as “skeet-shooting,” was developed by controllers to cancel out the high speed of the moon relative to Cassini and also help obtain ultra-sharp views as the spacecraft sped past the icy moon at 64,000...
frozen chicken head n.— «The mountain is empty, nearly. The shadows are lengthening, and the valley lies in darkness 2000 ft. below. The snow is hardening into icy chunks beneath our skis. “Frozen chicken heads,” Dave Monte calls them.» —“Alpine...
mascon n.— «The scientists used gravity fluctuations measured by NASA’s GRACE satellites to peer beneath Antarctica’s icy surface, and found a 200-mile-wide plug of mantle material—a mass concentration, or “mascon” in geological parlance—that had...
puffer n.— «Police Chief Gerry Whitman said officers also will be on the lookout for “puffers”—unattended cars puffing exhaust while warming up. The cars often are stolen for joy rides or wind up being used in crimes. Anyone who leaves a car...
monkey board n.— «Everything was icy and visibility was restricted to the bottom of the derrick—far below the monkey board, the little platform where I was to work.» —“The Tyranny of the Should” by Karl Laiho in Kuwait Toronto Star (Can.) June 22...
