I was looking at the asteroid 131 Vala, the origin of the programming language's name, on the JPL Small Object Database when I heard the sad news of David Bowie's passing. I noticed that the venerable old Orbit Viewer applet was no longer working and I wanted to watch some celestial bodies move that morning. So I ported the applet to Vala as a tribute to the Thin White Duke. Read on to see the results...

Continue reading