It is International Astronomy Year, an opportunity for everyone to celebrate the joy of the night skies.

And it seems from two news stories reported in Friday’s Royal Society Science in the News bulletin, a chance for researchers to grab their spades and exhume dead astronomers.

Researchers are hoping to be granted permission to open the Prague tomb of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, in the light of new evidence that he died from mercury poisoning administered by a contract killer.
The Times, p36, 1/3p (includes a reproduction of the Brahe portrait in the possession of the Royal Society)

British and Italian scientists plan to exhume the body of Galileo to determine whether an eye condition affected his observation of the planets.
The Daily Telegraph, p18, brief
The Guardian, p28, 2/3 col

Who else should we be digging up this year? And what is it about great scientists (Einstein and his brain comes to, umm, mind) that we keep wanting to fiddle with their bodies?