July 23, 2012

2012Margaret Mahy, New Zealand author (born 1936)^[†]

Margaret Mahy was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her "lasting contribution to children's literature".

2012Sally Ride, American physicist and astronaut (born 1951)^[†]

Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. She was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32.

2012Lakshmi Sahgal, Indian soldier and politician (born 1914)^[†]

Lakshmi Sahgal was an Indian politician and activist. She was a revolutionary of the Indian independence movement, an officer of the Indian National Army, and the Minister of Women's Affairs in the Azad Hind government. Lakshmi is commonly referred to in India as Captain Lakshmi, a reference to her rank when taken prisoner in Burma during the Second World War.

2012Esther Tusquets, Spanish publisher and author (born 1936)^[†]

Esther Tusquets was a Spanish publisher, novelist and essayist.

2012José Luis Uribarri, Spanish television host and director (born 1936)^[†]

José Luis Uribarri Grenouillou was a Spanish television presenter and director for TVE. He was the Spanish commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest on 18 occasions between 1969 and 2010. He was widely known as La voz de Eurovisión in Spain.

2012The Solar storm of 2012 was an unusually large coronal mass ejection that was emitted by the Sun which barely missed the Earth by nine days. If it hit, it would have caused up to US$2.6 trillion in damages to electrical equipment worldwide.^[†]

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a significant ejection of plasma mass from the Sun's corona into the heliosphere. CMEs are often associated with solar flares and other forms of solar activity, but a broadly accepted theoretical understanding of these relationships has not been established.