From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4@msn.com)
Date: Fri Jul 26 2002 - 22:09:32 PDT
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From: bulletins@SkyandTelescope.com
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 7:51 PM
To: ljk4@msn.com
Subject: S&T's Weekly News Bulletin for July 26th
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* * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - July 26, 2002 * * * *
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Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. Clear skies!
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CHANGES URGED FOR ASTROBIOLOGY EFFORT
In their enthusiasm to go prospecting for life elsewhere in the universe,
NASA managers have created a research enterprise that needs better focus
and more interaction with other scientific disciplines. Those were among
the conclusions of a blue-ribbon National Research Council panel tasked
with ensuring that the agency's fledgling astrobiology effort, begun just
five years ago, is moving in the right directions.
"Life in the Universe," a report issued a week ago by the NRC's Committee
on the Origin and Evolution of Life, assesses the progress in astrobiology
to date and, in particular, how well the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)
has performed....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_677_1.asp
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OUR STORMY SUN
The current solar-activity cycle peaked in May 2000, but someone
apparently forgot to tell the Sun. As one giant sunspot complex prepares
to rotate off our star's face, another has already swung into view. Both
are currently visible to the unaided eye and are nothing short of
spectacular in a telescope -- provided you use safe solar filters, of
course.
Last week Sunwatchers kept an eye on the active region designated 10030 by
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This
complex flared repeatedly as it crossed the solar disk. It was (and still
is) one of the largest spot groups in recent years. But active region
10039, which has now rotated into full view, looks like it may be even
more stormy.
Even before this second sunspot complex became visible, astronomers
suspected it packed a strong punch, because they detected ionized gas
leaping up thousands of miles from behind the Sun's limb....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_672_1.asp
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ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
It seems another comet is dissolving into nothingness, right in front of
astronomers' eyes. On July 13th, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Near
Earth Asteroid Tracking program (NEAT) reported finding a peculiar object
with a faint coma. Calculations at the Minor Planet Center soon revealed
that the small body had the same motion as the periodic comet 57P/du
Toit-Neujmin-Delporte but was separated from its nucleus by some 0.2
degree.
Alerted by those observations, a team of astronomers from the University
of Hawaii led by Yanga R. Fernández examined the comet with the
university's 2.2-meter telescope atop Manua Kea. Their images revealed 18
additional fragments that ranged in brightness from magnitude 20 to 23.5.
While the bulk of the comet's nucleus apparently remains intact, its
castoffs have already spread across a half degree of sky, roughly
1,000,000 kilometers....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_674_1.asp
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HEFTY ASTEROID TO SWEEP NEAR EARTH
Next month a newly discovered asteroid will pass close enough to Earth to
be easily spotted in small telescopes and even binoculars. According to
calculations by Gareth V. Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet
Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the asteroid's August 18th flyby
should bring it to within 530,000 kilometers (330,000 miles) of Earth,
just outside the Moon's orbital distance....
Still quite faint at magnitude 18, 2002 NY40 is making a very tight loop
around the star Beta Aquarii. During the next few weeks it will brighten
tremendously and yet remain almost motionless in the sky -- the eerie
signature of an asteroid hurtling right toward Earth! On the night of
Saturday, August 17th, 2002 NY40 should reach magnitude 9.3 when well
placed for viewing from North America. At that time its angular velocity
will exceed 4 arcminutes per minute, a motion easily perceptible in small
telescopes. SKY & TELESCOPE plans to issue detailed observing
instructions, through AstroAlerts and SkyandTelescope.com, in the days
leading up to this rare event....
While there is no danger of 2002 NY40 striking Earth during this flyby, a
future impact has not been ruled out. Both NEODyS, operated by the
University of Pisa, and NASA's Near-Earth Object Program have identified a
number of very close encounters in the years to come. These occur either
around August 18th as the asteroid heads in toward the Sun, or near
February 14th when on its way out. Both agencies are focusing on a flyby
just 20 years from now (on August 18, 2022), when there appears to be a
1-in-500,000 chance of an impact -- extremely unlikely, but worrisome just
the same....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_670_1.asp
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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS
High-speed camera probes exotic stellar objects
Using a new CCD camera capable of simultaneously taking 1,000 images per
second in three colors, British astronomers have gleaned valuable insights
into the inner workings of white dwarf-stars -- and have high hopes of
doing the same for neutron stars and black holes. ULTRACAM was developed
by scientists at the Universities of Southampton and Sheffield in
conjunction with the U.K. Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal
Observatory, Edinburgh. The instrument saw "first light" in May 2002 on
the 4.2-meter William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma, the largest
optical telescope in Europe.
New Asteroid Threat
Astronomers are paying especially close attention to a newly discovered
asteroid, which they've calculated to have a higher probability of
striking Earth than any known body. Designated 2002 NT7, the wayward
object was first spotted on July 9th by the LINEAR telescope in New
Mexico, so its orbit is still uncertain. Future observations -- or its
discovery on archived sky images - will refine the chance of a collision.
But it's already clear that on Friday, February 1, 2019, this
2-kilometer-wide asteroid will pass quite close to our planet. According
to NASA's orbital specialists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the impact
probability is about 1 in 250,000, whereas Italian dynamicists put the
odds nearer to 1 in 90,000. Both teams agree that the threat from 2002 NT7
warrants a 1 on the 1-to-10 Torino impact-hazard scale. Were it to
actually strike, it would deliver the kinetic-energy equivalent of 12 to
14 million megatons of TNT, enough to decimate much (or most) of a
continent.
Arrests Made in Moon-Rock Theft
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with NASA officials, has
arrested four people and charged them with stealing samples of the Moon
and Mars from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A NASA press release
states, "The employees -- Thad Roberts, Tiffany Fowler, and Shae Saur --
were summer employees and have been dismissed from their respective
student employment programs based on their involvement in the case."
Roberts had also been serving as president of the University of Utah
Astronomical Society. The fourth person arrested was Gordon McWorter.
Investigators say that on July 13th the group somehow made off with a
600-pound safe containing 218 lunar and meteoritic samples totaling about
10 ounces. Roberts, Fowler, and McWorter were apprehended one week later
as they attempted to sell some of the precious bits of extraterrestrial
rock to undercover agents in Orlando, Florida. Two days later Saur, still
in Houston, was taken into custody.
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_675_1.asp
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY
* The morning of July 29th is peak time for the Delta Aquarid meteor
shower.
* Last-quarter Moon is on August 1st.
* Neptune is at opposition on August 1st.
* Two large naked-eye sunspot groups continue to spawn flares and other
energetic explosions on the Sun. Look for possible auroral displays as low
as the middle latitudes.
For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/
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Copyright 2002 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided
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