Anne, a million thanks for that report. Scroll back and see my son's pix (I'l post the url for the exact place) so you can compare the last lunar eclipse.

For all of the most current Aurora reports please check http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html Looks like England had the best show!

I heard about the lunar eclipse on the news. They showed people in Japan viewing it.

Yeah.....I got to watch a downpour but some others saw it at 2am here so I am really unhappy for having missed it. Oh well. For my son's images ofd the previous lunar eclipse http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/public/read/geo/24.97 http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/public/read/geo/24.207

Chris report Last night's aurora from Eastern Pennsylvania as being green, pink and blue with stars sparkling through it. He prnounced it beautiful. It was his first experience seeing it. I am delighted - now if I can only get him to post his report next time.....sigh

Um.....that comment about posting ones own report was not just directed at Chris. We all like to read someone other than my words on any topic. Ok?!

Unveiling the Infrared Sky NASA Science News for July 20, 2000 Your home computer can become a portal to a wonderland of stars, thanks to a massive release of images from an infrared sky survey sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation. The current release is based on a volume of data several hundred times larger than that contained in the human genome! FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast20jul_1.htm?list

Coronal Mass Ejection 21 July 2000 There is high probability that the CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) from the major M-class solar flare of 19 July 2000 will arrive today. It is expected to hit the Earth almost head-on. It is not expected to be as intense as this last weekend's event. Auroral activity is expected to increase to storm levels on 21 July 2000. There is a good chance for observations of auroral activity from many dark-sky middle latitude regions, particularly prior to midnight when the moon is still below the horizon and optimal observing conditions exist. Moonrise occurs near local midnight. TWO ADDITIONAL M-Class flares occured today: :ALERTS: X-Ray event M5/1B/S12W14 BEG 20 Jul 2000 2022 MAX 20 Jul 2000 2025 END 20 Jul 2000 2028 UT Comment: None X-Ray event M5.5 BEG 21 Jul 2000 1430 MAX 21 Jul 2000 1437 END 21 Jul 2000 1443 UT Comment: None More: http://hfradio.org/propagation.html

Comet LINEAR update Space Weather News for July 22, 2000 Comet LINEAR will reach maximum brightness around July 23, 2000, as it glides past the bowl of the Big Dipper. Sky watchers have been hoping that LINEAR would become visible to the unaided eye. However, monitoring data from a global network of astronomers suggest that the comet's brightness will peak at a visual magnitude of +6.5, just below the threshold for naked-eye visibility. LINEAR should still be a visual treat when viewed through binoculars or a small telescope. ALSO: The Boulder sunspot number soared this week to a value of 401. Experts say that's rare, even near the peak of the solar maximum. For more information please visit http://www.spaceweather.com NOTE to readers: Since SpaceWeather.com was launched in its current form on January 1, 2000, the site has focused on solar and geomagnetic activity. Comets and meteors are an important aspect of space weather, too. With today's update about comet LINEAR we will begin an accelerating program of coverage for comets, meteor showers, and related astronomical events.

Comet LINEAR breaks apart Space Weather News for July 28, 2000 There is growing evidence that comet LINEAR, which made its closest approach to the Sun earlier this week, is disintegrating. Today's spaceweather.com features images and animations of the apparent breakup. Also, an interplanetary shock wave struck Earth's magnetosphere on July 28, 2000, triggering minor geomagnetic activity. For more information please visit http//www.spaceweather.com http//www.spaceweather.com

Wow a shock wave!

Amazing, huh?! They have great photos on that above url.

Propagation Forecast Bulletin 31 - August 4, 2000 Solar activity for last week (July 28 - August 3) was mostly at low levels. A minor M-class flare from region 9090 occurred on July 28. Several new regions (9110, 9111, 9112, 9113, 9114, and 9115) emerged later in the week. Region 9114 produced a C7 flare and associated CME on August 2. The 10.7 cm solar flux, following the sun's 27-day rotation period, decreased to a minimum of about 155 at the beginning of last week. Solar flux is forecasted to steadily climb to a maximum of about 240 around mid-August. A comment about 10.7 cm solar flux - although 10.7 cm solar flux is easy to measure because the Earth's atmosphere is transparent at that wavelength, energy at 10.7 cm is about 1 million times less energetic than the true ionizing energy. Thus 10.7 cm solar flux contributes nothing to the formation of the ionosphere. But it is an indicator of the general activity level of the sun, and smoothed solar flux values (a 12 month running average) correlate very well with smoothed sunspot numbers (SSN). Solar activity for next week (August 4 - August 10) is expected to be at moderate to high levels. Isolated M-class flares are expected, along with a chance for an isolated major flare. Historically the equinox months (September and March) give us the greatest amount of magnetic storms due to the orientation of the Earth at these times with respect to the solar wind. Thus expect an increase in storms up to mid-September, then a gradual decrease after that to a minimum in December. Cycle 23 continues its march upward, with a peak forecasted by the end of the year. For details, see the web site referenced in last week's bulletin (http://www.sec.noaa.gov/weekly/index.html). The latest SSN data is 113 for January 2000. The estimated SSN for the month of August is 120. Cycle 23 appears to be similar to, but just a bit higher than, Cycle 20, which peaked at an SSN of 110. This level of activity, while not approaching that of Cycles 22 and 21, will still give us excellent conditions on the higher HF bands as we progress from Summer to Fall and into Winter. Sunspot numbers for July 27 through August 2 were 174, 163, 183, 138, 123, 139 and 153 with a mean of 153.3. 10.7 cm flux was 162.4, 157.8, 153.2, 149.9, 147.9, 149.4 and 150.6, with a mean of 153, and estimated planetary A indices were 9, 30, 27, 10, 19, 15 and 14, with a mean of 17.7.

Astronomers Discover Nine Planets Outside Earth's Solar System Manchester, England, Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Astronomers say they've discovered nine planets, many as large as Jupiter, that orbit stars close to Earth, providing evidence that other solar systems made up of multiple planets exist. The results, presented at the International Astronomical Union meeting in Manchester, England, increase the number of planets discovered outside Earth's solar system to 50, said astronomer Dr. Jacqueline Mitton. ``We're making a leap to much more-distant stars,'' she said. Many of the planets discovered are 10 light-years to more than 100 light-years from Earth. The sun, by comparison, is eight light-minutes away, she said. A light year, the distance that light travels in one year, is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles. ``They're typically like Jupiter or Saturn, but it's not possible to determine exactly,'' Mitton said. ``They are giants, giant planets. They're balls of gas or liquid.'' Jupiter is about 300 times the size of Earth, U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Don Savage said. NASA helped fund the research, along with the U.S. National Science Foundation and Sun Microsystems Inc. All research was done using land-based telescopes, he said. The planets are discovered by measuring the gravitational pull, or ``wobble'' on stars the planets exert as they revolve around them, the same way the Earth follows an orbit around the sun. The results require a long series of exacting measurements that take ``several years'' to complete, Mitton said. While previous discoveries have been of single planets, ``there is evidence of multiple planets within these systems,'' Mitton said. Evidence also suggests the existence of smaller planets similar to Earth, not composed of fiery gases, that could in theory sustain life, she said. BBG/Astronomers-Discover-Nine-Planets-Outside-Ea/ Any redistribution of Bloomberg content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Bloomberg L.P. Any reference to the material must be properly attributed to Bloomberg News.

Perseid Dawn NASA Science News for August 08, 2000 The Perseid meteor shower peaks on August 12, 2000. This year the bright, nearly-full Moon will outshine the Perseids most of the night, but for an hour between moonset and sunrise on Saturday morning, star gazers could witness a brief but beautiful meteor shower. The setting Moon may put on a show of its own Saturday. Wildfires and dust storms have filled parts of our atmosphere with aerosols. A low-hanging Moon seen through such dusty air can take on a beautiful pink or orange hue. FULL STORY at http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast08aug_1.htm?list

Perseid meteor update + an ongoing geomagnetic storm Space Weather News for August 11, 2000 http://www.spaceweather.com On the eve of the Perseid meteor shower, sky watchers report seeing 10 to 15 meteors per hour streaming from the constellation Perseus. That's consistent with an expected peak rate between 30 and 50 visual meteors per hour before dawn on August 12th. The projected maximum is somewhat weaker than Perseid maxima of recent years, but observers are also reporting that this year's Perseid meteors have been pleasantly bright. The shower should put on a good show for northern hemisphere observers this Saturday morning. Readers are invited to send their photos of the 2000 Perseids to phillips@spacescience.com (Tony Phillips). There is a chance that Saturday morning sky watchers at higher latitudes could spot colorful auroras during the Perseid meteor shower. Our planet is experiencing an ongoing geomagnetic storm triggered by a southward-pointing interplanetary magnetic field in the vicinity of Earth. If conditions persist, high latitude (and possibly even mid-latitude) auroras are possible. For more information, please visit http://www.spaceweather.com

Thank Maggie for forwarding this! Manned flight to Mars in 2014? By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse (11 August 200) The best time for the first manned mission to Mars will be in 2014, says James Longuski of Purdue University in the US. This is because the position of the planets will provide an escape route back to Earth in the event of an accident. Because of an alignment of Earth, Mars and Venus, a so-called gravitational slingshot manoeuvre would take astronauts to Mars and, if needed, bring them home safely. According to Professor Longuski, the emergency flight path would only be possible if the spacecraft was launched within a few days of 14 January 2014. Via Venus Orbital calculations show that no similar escape option exists for at least a decade before or after 2014. This means that astronauts might be forced to attempt a landing on Mars even if their spacecraft became crippled in an accident on the way to Mars. "This trajectory is remarkably fortuitous as it does not exist for many years prior to or after the 2014 date," Professor Longuski said. Nasa has also identified 2014 as a possible launch date for the first human mission to Mars in a 1997 study. Professor Longuski discovered that the safest route to take would be one that permitted a quick return trip, via Venus, in case of an accident that forced the Mars landing to be aborted. If that happened, the Martian gravity would change the spacecraft's trajectory, hurling it toward Venus, where another gravity assist would return the spacecraft back to Earth. The gravity assist would allow a safe return to Earth even if the spacecraft's main rocket engine failed, Professor Longuski said. Currently, Nasa has small-scale studies but no plans for a manned mission to Mars. Many experts say that it is too late to organise a mission in 2014. But the advantages of that date may force Nasa to look again at manned flights to Mars

also from Maggie and Reuters: New evidence suggests ocean on icy Jupiter moon WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New information provides the strongest evidence yet that lying beneath the icy surface of one of Jupiter's moons may be a salty ocean of water, one of the necessary ingredients for life, researchers reported on Friday. Scientists said data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft suggest the presence of water in liquid form on Europa, a moon similar in size to the Earth's. The Galileo spacecraft passed close to Europa in January. Measurements from magnetic fields led scientists to conclude that "water is the most probable medium on Europa," wrote Margaret Kivelson of the University of California at Los Angeles. Kivelson and her colleagues reported their findings in Friday's edition of the journal Science. Previous NASA orbiters had beamed images of huge cracks in Europa's surface that indicated a liquid ocean might be sloshing underneath. But scientists could not tell from those pictures whether the water was frozen or still in liquid form, a key element for supporting life. Galileo collected data from magnetic fields and scientists found patterns that indicated the possibility of water, Kivelson and her colleagues wrote. While they did not rule out other scenarios, the scientists said water was the most likely explanation for the patterns they saw. Given the findings, Europa ranks just behind Mars as bodies in the solar system that merit further exploration for life forms, said David Stevenson of the California Institute of Technology. "After Mars, it remains the most attractive extraterrestrial environment within our solar system in which to seek evidence of past or present life," Stevenson wrote in an accompanying article in Science. Stevenson said the Galileo evidence of water is "overwhelming.... A global layer of water with a composition similar to Earth seawater and a thickness greater than about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) could explain the data." Future flights to Europa could provide more answers. NASA says it hopes to send another spacecraft there, although the space agency's missions have been hindered by budget constraints.

More on black holes..... Tuesday September 12 1:36 PM ET NASA Shows Evidence of 'Missing Link' Black Holes http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20000912/sc/space_holes_dc_1.html By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Black holes, those matter-sucking drains in space, used to come in only two sizes: small and extra, extra large. Tuesday, NASA offered evidence of a mid-size ``missing link'' black hole. Astronomers have theorized for years that such ``missing links'' existed in the rarefied world of black holes, but now they may have detected an example of this type using NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. A black hole with the mass of 500 suns packed into a region the size of Earth's moon has been detected in the M82 galaxy some 12 million to 15 million light years away, Wallace Tucker of the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said by telephone. Unlike black holes with a mass of up to a billion stars that tend to lie at a galaxy's center, the ``missing link'' is located some 600 light years from the heart of M82. That is relatively close in galactic terms. A light year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year. Relatively tiny black holes, known as stellar black holes because many have the mass of just a single star, are scattered throughout galaxies, including the Milky Way, which contains Earth. Black holes are the gluttons of the cosmos, gobbling up everything that comes near, not even letting light escape. For that reason they are invisible to scientists but can be detected by activity around their edges. Scientists had suspected that M82 might contain a so-called mid-mass black hole, but these suspicions were not confirmed until high-resolution images made with Chandra found that most X-rays in the galaxy were coming from a single, bright source. Repeated observations of M82 also showed that the X-ray flickered, brightening and dimming every 10 minutes or so. This flicker is the tell-tale sign of a black hole slurping gas from a nearby star or cloud, NASA scientists said. ``This is an interesting scientific mystery that's been solved by superior resolution of the Chandra observatory,'' Tucker said. He said scientists reported years ago that such an X-ray source might exist in M82 and there were also hints of such sources in other galaxies. But the telescopes could only ``see'' the center of the galaxy as ``one big blob,'' lacking the power to determine just where the X-rays were coming from. The M82 ``missing link'' is not in the absolute center of the galaxy, but comparatively close to it. It does seem to e in an area of rapid star formation and this raises questions about how the mid-size black hole formed, Tucker said. ``Did black holes that formed from normal stars form and then merge to form a 500 solar mass black hole or did massive stars collide and merge to form a hyperstar, that then collapsed to form (the ``missing link'') in one fell swoop?'' he said. Stellar black holes form as a natural consequence of evolution of massive stars that run out of the fuel they need to support their inner portions, which collapse of their own weight to form a black hole.

Just don't fall in, my dear!

16 September, 2000 Two full-halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occurred on September 15, 2000, and a third CME on September 16, 2000 has been observed as the brightest of the three. These were associated with solar flares (M5-class for the latest of the three CMEs). Due to the complex delta magnetic field in the Sunspot group 9165, there is a good chance for further eruptions. Those who wish to experience Aurora (visual as well as the radio propagation mode) should be on the lookout from this point forward. At the time of writing, the Aurora index is 10, the highest level. :ALERTS: Magnetic K-Index of 4 Warning valid from 16 September, 2000 1800Z to 17 September, 2000 1500Z. Magnetic A-Index greater than=30 Watch for 19 September, 2000Z. Magnetic A-Index greater than=30 Watch for 20 September, 2000Z. Report by NW7US More: http://hfradio.org/propagation.html

Mauna Kea may get extremely large scope Mauna Kea may be considered for a telescope with 10 times the light-collecting area of the world's largest optical telescopes, already atop the Big Island mountain. University of California and California Institute of Technology researchers who developed the 10-meter Keck telescopes have proposed building a 30-meter California Extremely Large Telescope (CELT). Almost routine discoveries have been coming out of the twin Kecks. CELT's mirror would allow astronomers to look deeper into the universe with more detail. "It means you can study fainter, more distant objects in the same vein of many observations at Keck, but you can do them better," said Jerry Nelson, University of California-Santa Cruz professor of astronomy and astrophysics who heads the telescope design working group. Mauna Kea and several sites in Chile have been mentioned for the CELT, which project leaders hope to build in 10 to 15 years. Joseph Miller, director of UC Observatories/Lick Observatory, estimated the cost at about $500 million. "We're working on the conceptual design but we don't have money in the bank so anything could happen two years from now," Nelson said in a telephone interview. "People could say, 'Whatever happened to CELT?' It's not a sure thing but we have strong support at the highest level of academic institutions." The master plan for Mauna Kea anticipated such a telescope, according to Robert McLaren, interim director of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. In the plan, it's called "Next Generation Large Telescope," describing the class of telescopes CELT falls into -- bigger than a 25-meter aperture, McLaren said. But while the plan foresees a telescope like CELT, such a project "would have to be fully reviewed, assessed and approved," he said. As a one-time Hawaii resident, Nelson said he'd like to see the new telescope go to Mauna Kea. "But for a project like this, you have to look for the best site for scientific and technical reasons, as well as fold in political things." A couple of sites in Mauna Kea's summit area might be suitable for a telescope as massive as the CELT, he said. "Nonetheless, one must be sensitive to the political issues in Hawaii about developing the summit of Mauna Kea," he said. If that site is chosen, Nelson said, project leaders would work with the community to address concerns and "not steamroll" over them. Since the Keck telescopes are owned and operated by UC and Caltech, which CELT would be as well, Nelson thinks "there would be a very strong connection. I could envision the same headquarters in Waimea." Because of the high maintenance costs of such facilities, however, the universities might end up selling or trading off part of Keck to support CELT, Nelson said. "It's all highly speculative as to what would happen in 10 years," he said. McLaren said there is a trend to give the national astronomy community more access to large telescopes, mostly in private hands, in return for more federal support. "In the case of Keck, it's unlikely that would happen real soon," he said, noting NASA is a partner in the telescope operation. Nelson said CELT leaders probably will start thinking seriously about sites in a year and aim for a decision in about four years. With CELT and adaptive optics, astronomers should be able to study galaxies and other distant things with better angular resolution than the Hubble Telescope, he said. "You really win bigger by a bigger telescope, with more light sensitivity and better resolution, sharper. We will learn more about what's happening at the distant edge of the universe." CELT also will be powerful in exploring star-forming regions and planet formation, Nelson said. "It has a lot of potential. Our (astronomy) communities are really excited about this. "Experience has shown when you're building new facilities like this, the most exciting stuff that comes out of it you haven't anticipated at all -- things you just didn't even know."

Sunday Times 17th Sept http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/ Britain plans �25m shield to prevent asteroid collisions Jonathan Leake, Science Editor A GOVERNMENT team is to propose spending up to �25m on a plan that would safeguard Britain and the world from devastation by a giant asteroid or comet. The Spaceguard initiative, expected to be announced tomorrow by Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the science minister, could see Britain using a chain of telescopes to detect and monitor "near-Earth objects". A report, from a commission appointed by Sainsbury, says that Earth faces a tiny but definite risk of being struck one day by an asteroid - a large lump of stone or metals travelling at tens of miles a second. This kind of impact is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago. A monitoring station, possibly based at Armagh in Northern Ireland and linked to telescopes around the world, would be the first stage in a programme that would also investigate ways of knocking any approaching asteroid off a collision course with Earth. One option could be to fire a nuclear missile that would explode close to the incoming rock and deflect it. At least two big impacts were recorded during the last century alone. The first, at Tunguska in Siberia in 1908, devastated an area the size of greater London. The other, in Brazil in 1947, left several huge craters. Both fell in unpopulated areas and nobody was killed. Last week astronomers announced that a huge asteroid would cross Earth's orbit today at a range of 2.6m miles. In astronomical terms this is a tiny distance - and others will come much closer. In 2027, a rock measuring half a mile in diameter, travelling at 50 miles per second and known as 1999 AN10, will hurtle past Earth at a distance of just 200,000 miles. It will pass close by several more times - with nobody yet able to predict whether it will hit the planet. The British commission includes Professor Harry Atkinson, who has worked for the European Space Agency and other international bodies, and Sir Crispin Tickell, the former British ambassador to the United Nations. It was set up in January. The threat is already taken seriously by America and Japan, which have established their own Spaceguard projects. Nasa has said it plans by 2006 to track all asteroids with diameters greater than 1km that will cross the path of Earth. An asteroid that size would wipe out most life and there would have been many such events early in Earth's 4.6 billion-year history. Now, however, the risk is much lower because most potential collisions have already happened. The last big asteroid, about six miles in diameter, was the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. The commission's report says Britain's role could be to find smaller objects, between 50 yards and about half a mile in diameter, of which there are many thousands. Up to six telescopes would have to be built - some designed to detect near-Earth objects, others to track them continually and a third group to analyse the light they reflect in order to find out what they are made of. The aim of Spaceguard would be to ensure that Earth had sufficient advance warning - hopefully decades - to investigate and then take preventive action. A Whitehall source said: "We accept there is a risk and want Britain to take a leading role in dealing with it." Sainsbury wants other European countries to help finance the network, which would be computerised and would enable astronomers to build up a huge database from which they could predict which objects presented a threat. Mark Bailey, director of the Armagh Observatory, a world-renowned centre for the study of asteroids and comets, where the project would probably be based, believes the world is now so heavily populated that even a small impact could kill millions. "Asteroid and comet impacts have changed human history in the past and it could happen again," he said. The biggest risk to Earth is from comets that appear at random from the Oort Cloud - a huge sphere of icy rubble that surrounds the solar system. They move very fast and could reach Earth within months of being spotted. Dr Bill Napier, an astronomer who specialises in comets and asteroids, believes the only solution is to set up a fleet of rockets carrying nuclear bombs that could be detonated half a mile from any threatening object. "You would only have to nudge them a few metres to send them safely past Earth to avoid Armageddon," he said.

House male says he could do it at half the price and would send everyone Bibles! The USA is also planning a defense system. Good grief, is their no end to our stupidity?!

Explain please why you consider it stupid?? I understand there is a large asteroid expected to arrive some 200,000 miles near earth in 2027. Some predictions of its closeness have been as little as 30,000 miles. An asteroid arrived some 2.6 million miles from earth last Sunday, which was considered close in Space terms. It would seem sensible to me to be looking at what could be done to deflect asteroids or comets and provide early warning ... the kinds of warning time I heard about was up to 10 years.

To read the full report of the Task force on Potentially Hazardous Near Earth Objects go to http://www.nearearthobjects.co.uk/downloads/full_report.pdf You will need Acrobat Reader The report is not dry and dusty ..it has a lot of information on comets and asteroids as well as plenty of pictures, and makes fascinating reading.

Ok, lighten the mood ...Here's something completely different ... The Dogon's Enigmatic Scientific Knowledge of Medicine and Astronomy http://www.discovertimbuktu.com/am/culture.html One of the top 10 places to see in Africa, the Dogon's homeland has been designated a World Heritage site for its cultural and natural significance. They are also famous for their artistic abilities and vast knowledge about astrology, especially the Sirius star, which is the center of their religious teachings. The Dogons know that Sirius A, the brightest system in our firmament, is next to a small white dwarf called Sirius B, which was not identified by western scientists until 1978. The Dogons knew about it at least 1000 years ago. Sirius B has formed the basis of the holiest Dogon beliefs since antiquity. Western astronomers did not discover the star until the middle of the nineteenth century, and it wasn't even photographed until 1970. The Dogons go as far as describing a third star in the Sirius system, called "Emme Ya" that, to date, has not been identified by astronomers. In addition to their knowledge of Sirius B, the Dogon mythology includes Saturn's rings and Jupiter's four major moons. They have four calendars, for the Sun, Moon, Sirius, and Venus, and have long known that planets orbit the sun.

Take a virtual tour of the sun ...this site is fantastic http://www.michielb.nl/sun/kaft.htm

Aurora Watch + An Unusual Asteroid Space Weather News for Oct. 3, 2000 http://www.spaceweather.com Ongoing geomagnetic activity could intensify on Wednesday or Thursday when an Earth-directed solar coronal mass ejection arrives in the neighborhood of our planet. With the Moon just past New, it may be a good time for stargazers to watch for dark-sky aurora. In other news, a Near-Earth Asteroid that passed our planet in September appears to be a binary space rock. See http://spaceweather.com for amateur video of the asteroid racing through the sky on October 2nd. For more information and images, please visit http://SpaceWeather.com

Storms Collide on Jupiter NASA Science News for October 24, 2000 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured dramatic images of two swirling storms on Jupiter as they collided to form a truly titanic tempest. FULL STORY at http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast24oct_1.htm?list89800

I o=posted this in radio being sassy to Mike, for which I apologize only a little: I've seen zodiacal light and Gegenshein and loads of green flashes and one turquoise flash along with abut 20 comets and innumerable satellites. Sonic booms but not from the Shuttle. Have seen the shuttle fly over and watched the first burnout ofEarth's orbit on the first moon trip. The last was just after having had dinner with astronauts on either side of me and across the table. Fascinating guys!!! Sunset rays are also frequent here. Oh, and the southern cross. The magellanic clouds are visible from here but just a little while per year. I should have added that I have also seen brilliant red and green aurorae just after a cloudy day had enabled us to see a huge sunspot with the naked eye. That must have been an enormous CME!!!

Oooh, also seen noctilucent clouds, and was reminded of the eclipses lunar which I have also seen. Alas, I missed the total solar eclipse HERE and the annular eclipse in California while I was there. Heavy clouds obsured even the darkening of the skies at totality in both cases. Do not come near me if you want to see things eclipse solar. The gods to not want me to see that. I did see the 3/4 eslipse many years ago in West Virginia and it was spectacular. Also another partial here for which I put up a pinhole porjector for public inspection in front of the college library. It worked splendidly. No UFOs, though... Ok guys, add you things to my list... What have you seen?

Here in Pittsburgh, which gets on average 49 clear days per year, everytime there's an eclipse or a meteor shower, it's either raining or cloudy. You can look up and see -- clouds.

check the picture with this caption - and the rest of the article! http://starbulletin.com/2000/11/13/news/story4.html UH Institute for Astronomy This is one of the most distant galaxy clusters discovered so far: almost 8 billion light years away. Early measurements suggest that this system may be one of the most massive clusters known. The picture was taken with the University of Hawaii's 2.2-meter telescope. Galaxies in the cluster appear as fuzzy yellowish blobs, while galaxies in the foreground (closer to us) appear bluer and galaxies in the background (farther away from us) appear redder. Non diffuse, bright objects are foreground stars. This image spans about 6-7 million light years of space.

Are you sure, Cheryl, that you are not living just down the street from me? Sounds like Hilo weather!

I think there might be some connection. Some strange weather connection through a dimensional portal.

Anyone listen to the Leonids last night? Accessed the Marshall space center's live streaming video and put on full screen. Watched them fill the weather balloon, launch it with the camera and listening devices and watched it rise and rise and rise. On the second re run of the filling of the balloon, etc, I finally fell asleep, hours before our portion of earth rotated so that we were facing outer space and incoming projectiles. Did anyone see anything?

I've been asked by my dear friend and lady I love, MarciaH, to contribute a few postings to this wonderful conference site she maintains. I've had a life-long interests in astronomy, volcanology, and planetary geology, and although I'm no expert in any of those fields, I find them fascinating nonetheless. One of the things that most attracts me to astronomy is the simple beauty and awe-inspiring grandeur of many of the images of astronomical objects that have been produced over the years, especially by the Hubble Space Telescope, which continues to orbit the Earth on it's mission of exploration, discovery, and research. One of the most remarkable images taken by the Hubble is actually a composite mosiac of several images called the Hubble Deep-Field Image. These images were taken over a period of several days beginning on December 18, 1995 until December 30 of that year. The images were of a fairly "empty" (or so it was thought) region of sky just north of the bowl of the Big Dipper in the constellation of Ursa Major (R.A. 12Hrs 36' 49.4000", Dec. +62Deg. 12' 58.0000"). After a series of long-duration exposures totaling some 100 hours, the images Hubble returned revealed showed a few local stars which inhabit our galaxy (the stars are the bright objects with classic "starpoints", which are actually defraction spikes--relics of light being scattered, refracted, and reflections from the telescope's optical structure), but everything else to be found in the images are individual galaxies like our own--island continents of millions, billions, and even trillions of stars. Some 1,200 - 1,500 separate galaxies have been counted i the Hubble Deep Field Image, the vast majority of which had never been observed before. Most of these galaxies are amongst the most distant ever observed, 10 to 12 billion light years away, meaning we are glimpsing these objects at a very early point in the Universe's history, when galaxies were still fairly new kids on the cosmic block. But the most remarkable aspect of the Hubble Deep Field Image is this: these incredibly distant galaxies are so far away that the area of sky they occupy is so small, that it could easily be covered by a single grain of sand held at arms length... Here is a link to a glimpse of this astonishingly beautiful, yet remarkably humbling image: http://cadcwww.dao.nrc.ca/hst/hdf/PR/MosaicQ.jpg

Neil, love, thank you for a spectular post! You sent me to see that image and it was stunning. The size of the universe is brought home most impresiively in your comment that this world of galaxies is just a sand-grain in size?! Held at arm's length!!! I sit and stare at that picture and I am stunned at the vastness it represents in that one sand grain... *Hugs*

thanks for that, neil. based on the fact that some starlight are from stars that have expired years and years ago but their light is only now reaching the earth. is it possible that the galaxies being observed by the hubble have already died away?

Neil, thank you for the information on the Hubble Telescope. I is something that I've heard about for years, but didn't really have much understanding or information.

That's awesome, thinking man!

SKY & TELESCOPE'S NEWS BULLETIN - DECEMBER 8, 2000 =========================================================== For images and Web links for these items, visit http://www.skypub.com =========================================================== Axel Mellinger's composite image of the entire Milky Way was so stunning that we made it into a poster. Now, not only is there a 2nd Edition of his quick-selling panorama, Mellinger has imaged the polar regions as well to create a spectacular all-sky view. The 24-by-36- inch "Celestial Sphere" poster consists of 51 wide-angle exposures stitched together into a seamless "real" map of the entire sky. The poster comes with a key chart identifying major constellations and stars. To order either of Mellinger's posters, visit Sky Publishing's online store at http://store.skypub.com/ or call 800-253-0245. =========================================================== MARTIAN SEDIMENTS: ANCIENT LAKEBEDS OR BLOW-INS? Dramatic new images show that Mars once had an environment that created sediment-like layers within craters and canyons across much of the planet's midsection. In some locales hundreds of individual beds can be counted, occasionally creating stacks of alternating light and dark layers 2 to 4 kilometers tall. In the region known as Terra Meridiani, the sediments extend continuously for hundreds of kilometers. As detailed by Michael C. Malin and Kenneth S. Edgett in the December 8th issue of Science, the layers could be explained by two very different climatic scenarios. "The first, and perhaps favored, model draws heavily on comparison to Earth to invoke a planet and environment capable of sustaining liquid water on its surface," they state. Thus the sediments occur preferentially in confined areas where water would tend to collect. The other scenario, which Malin and Edgett consider "a plausible but uniquely Martian explanation," envisions times when the Martian atmosphere was denser, enough so to mobilize and deposit huge amounts of dust. For example, the red planet's polar tilt is known to oscillate between 15 and 35 deg. every 100,000 years, a cycle that probably induces drastic changes in atmospheric pressure and climate as the thick polar ice caps vaporize and become redistributed. At such times the planet might have experienced ferocious dust storms, or the atmosphere may have aided in the transport of volcanic ash or impact debris. "We think both models have some validity," Malin told SKY & TELESCOPE, "or we wouldn't have included both." Although surface ages are notoriously difficult to estimate on Mars, the two researchers believe most of the sediments date from the earliest span of Martian history, between 3.5 and 4.3 billion years ago. But the evidence for such ancient ages is weak, Malin admits. In fact, Nathalie Cabrol (NASA/Ames Research Center) and her colleagues have used Viking images to identify roughly 200 Martian craters with lakebed sediments that she believes were laid down much more recently -- some only few hundred million years ago. "To say they are all ancient, I would be cautious," Cabrol warns. "What would the agent be to expose all these ancient layers in recent times? How do you do that? Maybe they are more recent than Malin and Edgett think, or something happened recently on Mars to exhume them." The crater sediments only add to the new and much more confusing picture of Mars that is emerging from Mars Global Surveyor data. When one observation indicates that the red planet had a warmer, wetter past, another (like widespread outcrops of the mineral olivine) argues for eons of cold, dry conditions. "We caution that the Mars images tell us that the story is actually quite complicated," Edgett notes, "and yet the implications are tremendous." SATURN'S CLAN GROWS BY FOUR The space around Saturn may not be as crowded as New York's La Guardia airport, but Thursday astronomers announced the discovery of four more small Saturnian satellites. The new objects, all between 23rd and 24th magnitude, were first spied on September 23rd by moon-meisters Brett Gladman (Nice Observatory) and J. J. Kavelaars (McMaster University) using the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Follow-up observations in late November by other members of Gladman's team cinched the discoveries, which bring the planet's total up to 28. No firm orbits exist at this time, and for now they've been designated S/2000 S 7 through S/2000 S 10. Additional observations are planned later this month, but the moonlets probably occupy a mix or prograde and retrograde orbits. The team continues to track a few other prospects as well. "During the past year and a half, the number of know outer-planet satellites (or candidate satellites) of the giant planets has more than doubled," observes Brian G. Marsden of the IAU's Minor Planet Center. Details of the new finds appear on IAU Circulars 7538 and 7539. HUBBLE PEERS INTO THE PLEIADES The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a closeup view inside one of the most familiar sights in the Northern Hemisphere's winter skies: the Pleiades star cluster. The image -- made by George Herbig and Theodore Simon (University of Hawaii) with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on September 19, 1999 -- shows tufts of nebulosity only 30 arcseconds from the Pleiad Merope. (The star lies just off the top of the frame.) Although the Pleiades are thought to be perhaps only 80 million years old, the gas and dust enveloping them are not the remnants their birth. The cloud just happens to be passing by, and this part of it is being eroded by the light from Merope only 0.06 light-year away. E. E. Barnard discovered much larger parts of the Merope cloud in the 19th century; it's now designated IC 349. The Pleiades can easily be seen with the naked eye high in the east these evenings, lying above brilliant Jupiter. You may be able to spot five or six Pleiads with your naked eye -- binoculars and telescopes will reveal dozens more. Yellowish Saturn is off to their right, and orange Aldebaran is below Jupiter. To help guide your way through the evening sky, see the maps for our Monthly Northern Sky Highlights at http://www.skypub.com/sights/northern/northern.html. COMETS IN THE SOUTHERN SKY Comet Utsunomiya-Jones (C/2000 W1) is between 6th and 7th magnitude, and thus easily seen in binoculars, but now it's observable only from the Southern Hemisphere, moving through Sagittarius. It reaches perihelion just inside the orbit of Mercury in late December, but will be behind the Sun. Here are positions for Comet Utsunomiya-Jones for 0 hours Universal Time in 2000.0 coordinates for the coming week: Date R.A. Dec. Dec 9 19h 35m -32.2 deg. Dec 11 19 36 -29.2 Dec 13 19 36 -26.8 Dec 15 19 34 -24.8 A better cross-hemisphere comet is Comet McNaught-Hartley (C/1999 T1). From the Southern Hemisphere, it is about 20 deg. above the eastern horizon just before the first light of dawn. Northern Hemisphere observers may be able to spot it a about 15 degrees above the southeastern horizon before morning twilight. The 8th-magnitude comet continues its trek across Hydra. Here are positions for McNaught-Hartley for 0 hours Universal Time in 2000.0 coordinates for the coming week: Date R.A. Dec. Dec 9 13h 52m -26.3 deg. Dec 11 13 58 -25.3 Dec 13 14 03 -24.3 Dec 15 14 09 -23.3 For more about these comets, see the Special Sky Events page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0012skyevents.html . THIS WEEK'S "SKY AT A GLANCE" Some daily events in the changing sky, by the editors of Sky & Telescope. DEC. 10 -- SUNDAY * Full Moon tonight (exact at 4:03 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Monday morning). * The Moon forms a zigzag line in the evening sky with orange Aldebaran, bright Jupiter, and yellowish Saturn, counting in that order toward the Moon's upper right or right. * Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter's central meridian (the imaginary line down the center of the planet's disk from pole to pole) around 7:18 p.m. EST. The "red" spot is very pale orange-tan. It should be visible in a good 4- or 6-inch telescope if the atmospheric seeing is sharp and steady. For a list of all predicted Red Spot transit times, see http://www.skypub.com/sights/moonplanets/redspot.html . DEC. 11 -- MONDAY * The Moon forms a big, roughly equilateral triangle in the evening sky with bright Jupiter to its upper right and Capella to its upper left. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 1:04 a.m. EST Tuesday morning. DEC. 12 -- TUESDAY * The Geminid meteor shower should be at its peak late this evening and early tomorrow morning. But bright moonlight will hide most of the meteors from view. * The Moon occults (covers) the 3.5-magnitude star Delta Geminorum late tonight as seen from most of North America and Hawaii. For a timetable of the star's reappearance from behind the Moon's thin dark limb -- an event visible with a small telescope if you're watching at the right instant -- see the December Sky & Telescope, page 115, or http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0012skyevents.html . * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 8:56 p.m. EST. * Mars and Spica appear closest together, 3 degrees apart, in the dawn sky Wednesday morning. DEC. 13 -- WEDNESDAY * The winter constellation Orion rises into good view low in the east-southeastern sky by 7:30 or 8 p.m. Look for it looming up far below bright Jupiter and Saturn. DEC. 14 -- THURSDAY * The red long-period variable star R Trianguli should be at its maximum brightness (about 6th magnitude) around this date. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 10:34 p.m. EST. DEC. 15 -- FRIDAY * After the Moon rises late this evening, look to its right or upper right for Regulus. DEC. 16 -- SATURDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 12:12 a.m. EST Sunday morning. ============================ THIS WEEK'S PLANET ROUNDUP ============================ MERCURY is hidden in the glow of sunrise. VENUS shines very brilliantly (magnitude -4.2) in the southwestern sky during and after dusk. MARS (magnitude +1.5, in Virgo) glows yellow-orange high in the southeast before dawn. Near it shines Spica, slightly brighter at magnitude +1.0. JUPITER and SATURN (magnitudes -2.8 and -0.2, respectively) shine brightly in the east to southeast during evening. Jupiter is the brighter one. Saturn appears 8 or 9 degrees (nearly a fist-width at arm's length) to Jupiter's upper right. They're in the constellation Taurus; above Jupiter is the Pleiades star cluster, and below Jupiter sparkles orange Aldebaran. By 10 p.m. the whole group is high in the south. URANUS and NEPTUNE (invisible to the naked eye, at magnitudes 6 and 8 in Capricornus) are getting very low in the southwest after dark. They're far in the background of Venus. PLUTO is hidden in the glare of the Sun. All descriptions that relate to the horizon or zenith -- including the words up, down, right, and left -- are written for the world's midnorthern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude are for North America. Eastern Standard Time, EST, equals Universal Time [GMT] minus 5 hours.) More celestial events, sky maps, and news of the world's astronomy research appear each month in SKY & TELESCOPE, the essential magazine of astronomy. See our enormous Web site and astronomy bookstore at http://www.skypub.com/ . Clear skies! SKY & TELESCOPE, 49 Bay State Rd., Cambridge, MA 02138 * 617-864-7360 =========================================================== Copyright 2000 Sky Publishing Corporation. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance stargazing calendar are provided as a service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as these paragraphs are included. But the text of the bulletin and calendar may not be published in any other form without permission from Sky Publishing (contact permissions@skypub.com or phone 617-864-7360). Updates of astronomical news, including active links to related Internet resources, are available via SKY & TELESCOPE's site on the World Wide Web at http://www.skypub.com/.

NEWSALERT: Monday, December 11, 2000 @ 0551 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now ENDEAVOUR HEADS FOR FLORIDA HOMECOMING TODAY -------------------------------------------- Flush with success, the shuttle Endeavour astronauts are set to close out their mission that spread the power-generating wings of the international space station this evening with a pin-point landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Touchdown on Runway 15 is expected at 2304 GMT (6:04 p.m. EST ). http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/001211fd12/ Continuous live landing updates in our status center: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/status.html Timeline of today's deorbit preparation: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/fdf/97entry.html Landing weather forecast: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/fdf/97wx.html ATLANTIS ROLLOUT DELAYED FOR BOOSTER INSPECTIONS ------------------------------------------------ Rollout of shuttle Atlantis to pad 39A to ready the ship for launch next month will be delayed at least two days -- from Monday to Wednesday -- because of ongoing work to determine why an explosive booster separation bolt failed to fire during the Endeavour's launch Nov. 30. http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/001210sts98/ ARIANE 4 TO ROCKET TURKISH EURASIASAT 1 CRAFT INTO ORBIT -------------------------------------------------------- A Turkish telecommunications satellite built to bridge Europe and Asia is poised for its launch into space later today atop an Arianespace Ariane 4 rocket. Liftoff is set for 2204 GMT (5:04 p.m. EST) from Kourou, South America. We will have live reports: http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html LAST WEEK'S ATLAS ROCKET LAUNCH REVISITED ----------------------------------------- Spaceflight Now looks back to last Tuesday's flight of the Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS rocket with a secret satellite cargo with a gallery of spectacular launch photographs. http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/ac157/launch.html WEEKEND HEADLINES ----------------- FOUR ADDITIONAL MOONS DISCOVERED ORBITING SATURN http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/10saturnmoons/ ASTRONOMERS FIND NEW EVIDENCE FOR MAGNETARS http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/09magnetars/

NEWSALERT: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 @ 0524 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now ENDEAVOUR RETURNS TO EARTH WITH NIGHTTIME LANDING ------------------------------------------------- The space shuttle Endeavour glided to a smooth Florida touchdown Monday evening just minutes after the international space station sailed overhead, closing out a successful flight to equip the outpost with the most powerful solar arrays ever launched. http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/001211land/ Read our play-by-play description of entry and landing: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/status.html Video clip of Endeavour's landing from NASA Television: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/video/001211landing_qt.html Video from onboard camera showing pilot's view: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/video/001211ppov_qt.html Video of landing from infrared camera: http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/video/001211irland_qt.html THREE EXTRASOLAR PLANETS FOUND 150 LIGHT-YEARS AWAY --------------------------------------------------- Three new planets around distant stars have been found by scientists using an observatory in Australia, adding to the 46 other extrasolar planets found since 1995. The new worlds vary in size but are comparable to Jupiter and likely gas giants. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/12planets/ HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS MAKE STELLAR DISCOVERY, WIN AWARD ------------------------------------------------------ Three high school students, using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NSF's Very Large Array, Monday won first place in the Siemens-Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition for discovery of the first evidence of a neutron star in the nearby supernova remnant. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/12chandrakids/ ONE OF NASA'S FEMALE PIONEERS TO RETIRE --------------------------------------- In 1964, Carolyn Griner was one of only three women in technical positions at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center -- outnumbered by male engineers at a ratio of more than 1,000 to one. Today, after 36 years of helping America reach new frontiers in space exploration, Griner, now deputy director of Marshall, has announced plans to retire. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/12griner/ GALILEO CONTINUES PROBING JOVIAN MAGNETOSPHERE ---------------------------------------------- Galileo's efforts continue on maintaining the continuity of a survey of the Jovian magnetosphere. The survey data are very valuable as they are Galileo's contribution to a dual-spacecraft observation campaign to examine the influence of the solar wind on the magnetosphere. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/12galileothisweek/ ARIANE 4 ROCKET LAUNCH OF TURKISH CRAFT DELAYED ----------------------------------------------- Monday's launch of the Arianespace Ariane 4 rocket with the Turkish Eurasiasat 1 communications spacecraft from Kourou in South America was called off and a new date is still pending. http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html

NEWSALERT: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 @ 0612 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now JUPITER'S EYE SEEN WATCHING IO IN STUNNING NEW PHOTO ---------------------------------------------------- As NASA's Cassini spacecraft cruises through space, the probe has captured yet another awe-inspiring image of Jupiter. This latest view shows details of the planet's Great Red Spot and other features not seen earlier. Also visible is the Jovian moon Io and the white and reddish colors on its surface. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/13jupio/ BOOSTER INSPECTIONS KEEP SHUTTLE ATLANTIS PARKED ------------------------------------------------ Engineers began inspections of electrical cable connectors in the solid rocket boosters of space shuttle Atlantis on Tuesday in the wake of a problem during the launch of sistership Endeavour two weeks ago. http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/001212sts98/ BLACK HOLES SAID YOUNGER, MEANER AND MORE PLENTIFUL --------------------------------------------------- A team of astronomers has found that supermassive black holes contribute about as much energy to the Universe as all the stars combined. Many have formed recently rather than in the early, violent stages of galaxy birth. And, at any give time in the history of the Universe, about 10 percent of all supermassive black holes are actively pulling in huge quantities of gas and whole stars. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/13chandra/ DOD GETS GLOBAL WITH IRIDIUM SATELLITE-PHONE SYSTEM --------------------------------------------------- The U.S. Department of Defense awarded a two-year, $72 million contract last week for unlimited use of the global Iridium satellite-based, secure telephone network. Details of deal indicate the Pentagon will pay 10 to 30 cents a minute while new civilian commercial service will cost about 80 cents a minute, down from the previous near $5 per minute for some customers. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/13iridium/ FUTURE FRENCH MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM SET ------------------------------------------------ Alcatel Space has won the contract to build France's new-generation Syracuse 3A military satellite, plus options for a second and third satellite in the series. Syracuse 3A satellite will enter service in 2003, complementing the current fleet of mixed civil/military spacecraft to serve both French and allied armed forces. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/13syracuse3a/

NEWSALERT: Thursday, December 14, 2000 @ 0450 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now NEW REPORT OFFERS EVIDENCE OF PRIMITIVE LIFE ON MARS ---------------------------------------------------- A new scientific report offers compelling evidence that primitive life existed on Mars. Tiny magnetite crystals, identical to those used by aqueous bacteria on Earth as compasses to find food and energy, have been found in the Martian meteorite ALH84001. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/14marslife/ NEW MOVIE NOW SHOWING: 'HIGH CLOUDS OF JUPITER' ----------------------------------------------- Images from NASA's Cassini space probe have been used to generate this new movie of Jupiter's high-altitude clouds. This is the first time a movie sequence of Jupiter has been made that illustrates the motions of the high clouds on a global scale. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/14jupiter/ SHUTTLE DELAY EXTENDS VOYAGE OF FIRST STATION CREW -------------------------------------------------- The first expedition aboard international space station got a little longer on Wednesday when NASA announced a delay from February to March in launching space shuttle Discovery to ferry the three-man crew back to Earth. http://spaceflightnow.com/ops/stage4a/001214sts102/ ENGINE BURN PUTS NEAR SHOEMAKER ON FINAL TRACK ---------------------------------------------- An engine firing yesterday put NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft in orbit just 22 miles above the tumbling space rock Eros' center of mass in preparation for low altitude operations in January and February, just prior to the mission's end. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/14nearburn/

I thought we'd known about the Mars meteorite for a while, this isn't "news" per se, is it?

Not as far as I know. Did not check the link to see what new tests it was undergoing. I shall, though, and post what I discover.

=========================================================== SKY & TELESCOPE'S NEWS BULLETIN - DECEMBER 15, 2000 =========================================================== For images and Web links for these items, visit http://www.skypub.com =========================================================== Axel Mellinger's composite image of the entire Milky Way was so stunning that we made it into a poster. Now, not only is there a 2nd Edition of his quick-selling panorama, Mellinger has imaged the polar regions as well to create a spectacular all-sky view. The 24-by-36- inch "Celestial Sphere" poster consists of 51 wide-angle exposures stitched together into a seamless "real" map of the entire sky. The poster comes with a key chart identifying major constellations and stars. To order either of Mellinger's posters, visit Sky Publishing's online store at http://store.skypub.com/ or call 800-253-0245. =========================================================== HUBBLE AND CASSINI TEAM UP ON JUPITER Yesterday marked the start of a two-week-long observing campaign by the Hubble Space Telescope and Cassini spacecraft to monitor auroral activity on Jupiter. Cassini is nearing the solar system's largest planet on its way to a 2004 appointment with Saturn, and scientists are taking full advantage of this month's opportunity. The spacecraft will pass 9.8 million kilometers from Jupiter on December 30th. Shortly after the flyby, the dual observations will recommence, as Hubble will image Jupiter's day side and Cassini will watch the planet's night side. Astronomers hope to obtain a better understanding of the interaction of the solar wind with Jupiter's magnetic field and create a model of the planet's aurora. To illustrate what Hubble and Cassini will be looking for, the Space Telescope Science Institute released a detailed view of Jupiter's north pole surrounded by aurora. The picture -- taken on November 26, 1998 -- features auroral "footprints" of Io, Ganymede, and Europa. These are artifacts of the electric fields generated as the satellites move through Jupiter's magnetosphere. AN ALL-SKY OPTICAL SETI SURVEY A new kind search for intelligent life in the universe is in the making. Paul Horowitz (Harvard University) and his graduate students Andrew Howard and Chip Coldwell have begun building a specialized, 72-inch (1.8-meter) telescope that will sweep more than half the celestial sphere to look for extremely brief laser pulses from other civilizations. Recent studies indicate that lasers could be as efficient as radio for interstellar signaling. Following up on this idea, several optical SETI projects are already under way (including one by Horowitz's group) or are being built. But these are "targeted" searches looking only at preselected lists of a few thousand stars at most. The new wide-sky survey will take at least brief looks at hundreds of millions. The telescope's main mirror will be a cheap "light bucket" of low optical quality. At the heart of the instrument will be two parallel arrays of 1,024 high-speed photomultipliers each. These will observe a 1.6 degree-by-0.2 degree swath of sky at once. Only recently have such arrays become available. They will be able to resolve light pulses as short as a nanosecond (a billionth of a second). Any such brief pulses from the stars would be clearly artificial and would represent an energy-efficient way to communicate across thousands of light-years. The $350,000 project is being funded by The Planetary Society. Half the amount has been put up as a matching grant by one donor, David Brown, and the society is canvassing its members for the rest. Horowitz says the instrument will examine every point on more than half the celestial sphere for at least 48 seconds every 150 clear nights. It will sweep the whole sky from declination +60 degrees to -20 degrees, a zone that includes more than half of the visible Milky Way. If all goes well observations should begin in late 2001 or 2002. For a description of all the radio and optical SETI searches under way worldwide, and a comprehensive review of today's debate over intelligent life in the universe, see Sky & Telescope's SETI Page at http://www.skypub.com/news/special/seti_toc.html . CHRISTMAS ECLIPSE Christmas Day will be extra special this year. Weather permitting, people all across North America will be able to watch the Moon glide across the low December Sun, creating a partial solar eclipse. This event will be visible throughout nearly all the inhabited parts of North America (except Alaska and the Yukon), as well as from most of Mexico and the Caribbean. To find out when the eclipse will occur, how much of the Sun will be covered from your location, and how to observe it safely, see Sky & Telescope's Web site at http://www.skypub.com/sights/eclipses/solar/001225partial.html . COMET MCNAUGHT-HARTLEY IN THE MORNING Although it is the brightest comet in the sky right now -- between 6th and 7th magnitude -- Comet Utsunomiya-Jones (C/2000 W1) has moved closer to the Sun, heading toward its perihelion on December 26th. By the time the last of evening twilight has faded, the comet is only a few degrees above the horizon. To see the next-best comet, you'll have to head out early in the morning. Comet McNaught-Hartley (C/1999 T1) is highest -- between 15 and 20 deg. above the horizon -- just before the first light of dawn. At that time, Northern Hemisphere observers will find it in the southeast, while Southern Hemisphere observers will find it in the south. The 8th-magnitude comet moves nearly due north through Virgo and enters Libra this coming week. Here are positions for McNaught-Hartley for 0 hours Universal Time in 2000.0 coordinates: Date R.A. Dec. Dec 16 14h 12m -22.7 deg. Dec 18 14 17 -21.6 Dec 20 14 23 -20.5 Dec 22 14 28 -19.3 For more about these comets, see the Special Sky Events page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0012skyevents.html . THIS WEEK'S "SKY AT A GLANCE" Some daily events in the changing sky, by the editors of Sky & Telescope. DEC. 17 -- SUNDAY * Last-quarter Moon (exact at 7:41 p.m. EST). * Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter's central meridian (the imaginary line down the center of the planet's disk from pole to pole) around 8:03 p.m. EST. The "red" spot is currently very pale orange-tan. It should be visible in a good 4- or 6-inch telescope if the atmospheric seeing is sharp and steady. For a list of all predicted Red Spot transit times, see http://www.skypub.com/sights/moonplanets/redspot.html . DEC. 18 -- MONDAY * Some doorstep astronomy: The brilliant light in the southwest just dusk is Venus. The brightest star higher in the northwest is Vega. Just about halfway between them (due west), look for Altair. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 1:50 a.m. EST Tuesday morning. * Before and during dawn tomorrow morning, the Moon shines above orange Mars and blue-white Spica high in the southeastern sky. DEC. 19 -- TUESDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 9:41 p.m. EST. * The Moon shines in a line with Mars and Spica high in the southeast before and during dawn tomorrow. DEC. 20 -- WEDNESDAY * By about 6:30 p.m. Orion has already cleared the eastern horizon. Look for it far below bright Jupiter and Saturn. DEC. 21 -- THURSDAY * The Sun reaches the solstice at 8:37 a.m. EST, marking the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. * An unusual outburst of the normally weak Ursid meteor shower is possible late tonight for meteor watchers in North America. The shower's radiant is in the bowl of the Little Dipper. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 11:19 p.m. EST. * Early tomorrow morning the asteroid 6 Hebe should occult (cover) a 10.8-magnitude star in Virgo for up to 10 seconds. The combined light of the star and asteroid will drop by only 0.9 magnitude. The occultation should take place within a few minutes of 10:58 Universal Time December 22 along a track from Oregon to New England. For a finder chart see the December Sky & Telescope, page 115, or http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0012skyevents.html . For late updates check www.lunar-occultations.com/iota . DEC. 22 -- FRIDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 7:11 p.m. EST. DEC. 23 -- SATURDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 12:57 p.m. EST Sunday morning. ============================ THIS WEEK'S PLANET ROUNDUP ============================ MERCURY is hidden in the glare of the Sun. VENUS shines very brilliantly (magnitude -4.2) in the southwestern sky during and after dusk. Look well to its left (by about three fist-widths at arm's length) for the 1st-magnitude star Fomalhaut. MARS (magnitude +1.5, in Virgo) glows yellow-orange high in the southeast before dawn. Near it (to the right) shines Spica, slightly brighter at magnitude +1.0. JUPITER and SATURN (magnitudes -2.8 and -0.2, respectively) shine brightly in the east to southeast during evening. Jupiter is the brighter one. Saturn appears 8 degrees (a little less than a fist-width at arm's length) to Jupiter's right or upper right. They're in the constellation Taurus; above Jupiter is the Pleiades star cluster, and below Jupiter sparkles orange Aldebaran. By 9:30 p.m. the whole group is high in the south. URANUS and NEPTUNE (invisible to the naked eye, at magnitudes 6 and 8 in Capricornus) are getting very low in the southwest just after dark. They're far in the background of Venus. PLUTO is hidden in the glare of the Sun. (All descriptions that relate to the horizon or zenith -- including the words up, down, right, and left -- are written for the world's midnorthern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude are for North America. Eastern Standard Time, EST, equals Universal Time [GMT] minus 5 hours.) More celestial events, sky maps, and news of the world's astronomy research appear each month in SKY & TELESCOPE, the essential magazine of astronomy. See our enormous Web site and astronomy bookstore at http://www.skypub.com/ . Clear skies! SKY & TELESCOPE, 49 Bay State Rd., Cambridge, MA 02138 * 617-864-7360 =========================================================== Copyright 2000 Sky Publishing Corporation. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance stargazing calendar are provided as a service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as these paragraphs are included. But the text of the bulletin and calendar may not be published in any other form without permission from Sky Publishing (contact permissions@skypub.com or phone 617-864-7360). Updates of astronomical news, including active links to related Internet resources, are available via SKY & TELESCOPE's site on the World Wide Web at http://www.skypub.com/. In cooperation with the American Association of Amateur Astronomers (http://www.corvus.com/), S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance are available via electronic mailing list. For a free subscription, send e-mail to join@astromax.com and put the word "join" on the first line of the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to unjoin@astromax.com and put the word "unjoin" on the first line of the body of the message. If you should have any problems either subscribing to or unsubscribing from the list, send a message to list administrator John Wagoner at stargate@gte.net for assistance.

NEWSALERT: Monday, December 18, 2000 @ 0531 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now OCEAN BELIEVED HIDDEN ON SOLAR SYSTEM'S LARGEST MOON ---------------------------------------------------- Add Jupiter's moon Ganymede, which is bigger than two of the solar system's nine planets, to the growing list of worlds with evidence of liquid water under the surface. A thick layer of melted, salty water somewhere beneath Ganymede's icy crust would be the best way to explain some of the magnetic readings taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/17ganymedeocean/ BOOSTER REPAIRS THREATEN TO DELAY NEXT SHUTTLE LAUNCH ----------------------------------------------------- Launch of the shuttle Atlantis next month on the next space station assembly mission faces a potentially significant delay because of work required to fix a crumbling electrical cable in the shuttle's booster separation system. Workers may be forced to remove Atlantis and its external fuel tank to complete the repair job. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/stage5a/001218srb/ Watch our NEW status center for developing news today: http://spaceflightnow.com/station/status.html DETAILS EMERGE AS IRIDIUM'S TRANSFER OF POWER WRAPS UP ------------------------------------------------------ The new company pumping life into the once-defunct Iridium satellite telephone system plans to relaunch the global communications service within the next couple of months. Plans also call for seven more spacecraft to be launched into the constellation. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/18iridium/ MAGNETIC FIELD 'UMBRELLAS' SHIELD MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE ---------------------------------------------------- Though Mars lacks a global protective magnetic shield like that of the Earth, strong localized magnetic fields embedded in the crust appear to be a significant barrier to erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind, according to a new map by the Mars Global Surveyor. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/17marsmagnet/ ARIANE 508 ROCKET TO LAUNCH 3 PAYLOADS TUESDAY NIGHT ---------------------------------------------------- A mighty Ariane 5 rocket has taken center stage at the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, where satellite troubles have sidelined an Ariane 4 launcher once poised for blastoff a week ago. Workers are now gearing up to launch a pair of communications satellites and a crucial Japanese experiment Tuesday evening on the Ariane 508 vehicle. http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v138/status.html

NEWSALERT: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 @ 0630 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now INTRICATE STRUCTURES SEEN IN JUPITER'S POLAR REGION --------------------------------------------------- The familiar banded appearance of Jupiter at low and middle latitudes gradually gives way to a more mottled appearance at high latitudes in this striking true color image taken last week by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/19jupmott/ MOST DISTANT SPACECRAFT MAY REACH SHOCK ZONE SOON ------------------------------------------------- A NASA spacecraft headed out of the solar system at a speed that would streak from New York to Los Angeles in less than four minutes could reach the first main feature of the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space within three years. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/19voyager1/ ARIANE 5 LAUNCH TO CLOSE OUT 2000 FOR ARIANESPACE ------------------------------------------------- The European Ariane 508 rocket is sitting on its South American launch pad and awaiting liftoff with two communications satellites and an experimental technology demonstration tonight at 0026 GMT (7:26 p.m. EST). We will have comprehensive live launch coverage. http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v138/status.html ANDROMEDA GALAXY COMES ALIVE WITH DETAILED SPYING ------------------------------------------------- The Andromeda galaxy, only 2.6 million light years away, is an ideal field of study for X-ray astronomy. XMM-Newton has observed its galactic center, revealing many new point sources and the probable presence of a very hot diffuse gas which contributes to the overall X-ray luminosity. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/19xmmdiffuse/ NO OFFICIAL DECISION YET ON SHUTTLE BOOSTER REPAIR -------------------------------------------------- NASA officials have yet to select a plan to repair solid rocket booster cabling on space shuttle Atlantis. The repair plan chosen will impact the shuttle's scheduled January 18 launch date on a mission to deliver the Destiny research module to the international space station. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/status.html SOYUZ PICKED TO LAUNCH EUROPEAN WEATHER SATELLITES -------------------------------------------------- EUMETSAT has signed a contract with Starsem for the launch of its Metop polar orbiting satellites. The launch of the first satellite of three in the Metop series, part of the EUMETSAT Polar System, is planned for 2005. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/19eumetsat/

NEWSALERT: Thursday, December 21, 2000 @ 1629 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now PROBLEM HITS CASSINI JUST DAYS BEFORE JUPITER FLYBY --------------------------------------------------- The Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft suspended its observations of Jupiter on Wednesday because of troubles with its pointing system, ending the much-anticipated picture-taking and research as the probe heads to a close encounter with the giant gas planet next week. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/21cassproblem/ IO CASTS SHADOW ON JUPITER IN CASSINI'S BEST IMAGE YET ------------------------------------------------------ Jupiter's four largest satellites, including Io, the golden ornament in front of Jupiter in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, have fascinated Earthlings ever since Galileo Galilei discovered them in 1610 in one of his first astronomical uses of the telescope. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/21jupio/ NASA REVIVES PLUTO MISSION -------------------------- Bowing to pressure from both the scientific community and the general public, NASA gave new life Wednesday to prospects for a Pluto mission, saying it would solicit proposals for a revised mission to the outermost planet in our solar system. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/21pluto/ LANDING SITE SELECTED FOR BEAGLE 2 MISSION TO MARS -------------------------------------------------- The European Space Agency's Mars Express lander, Beagle 2, will land on Isidis Planitia, a large flat region that overlies the boundary between the ancient highlands and the northern plains of the Red Planet. The region appears to be a sedimentary basin where traces of life could have been preserved. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/21beagle2/ CHINESE NAVIGATION SATELLITE LAUNCHED INTO SPACE ------------------------------------------------ China launched the "Beidou" navigation satellite today aboard a Long March 3A rocket from the Xichang space center in the southwest province of Sichuan, the Xinhua news agency reported. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/21beidou/

They better get that Pluto flight off withing two years or the window shuts down as Pluto gets very far away, like it wasn't far already! Man, how many *years* will that take to get there? And how will they pump a signal back? What a feat to pull off. And they have to do it on the cheap.

Too bad about Casini.

It has to be done very carefullly, for certain. Smoke and mirrors just don't hack it anymore! It is fixed!! See below: NEWSALERT: Friday, December 22, 2000 @ 0604 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now CASSINI'S POINTING SYSTEM PROBLEM APPEARS FIXED ----------------------------------------------- A glitch with the pointing system aboard NASA's Cassini space probe appeared to be resolved on Thursday, giving scientists optimism the craft could resume observations of the planet Jupiter during next Saturday's flyby. Cassini is on a 2.2-billion mile, seven-year interplanetary trek to Saturn. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/22cassini/ NASA RELEASES JUPITER FAMILY PORTRAIT WITH MOONS ------------------------------------------------ One moment in an ancient, orbital dance is caught in this color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 7, just as two of Jupiter's four major moons, Europa and Callisto, were nearly perfectly aligned with each other and the center of the planet. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/22cassmoons/ REDOCKING OF STATION CARGO SHIP WILL BE TRICKY AFFAIR ----------------------------------------------------- Russian flight controllers - and ultimately, cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko - will have overall control authority during the upcoming redocking of a Progress supply to the international space station Tuesday. U.S flight controllers will only provide oversight and make a video conferencing system available. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/stage5a/001221update/ See our timeline of the redocking sequence: http://spaceflightnow.com/station/stage5a/fdf/redocking.html SPACE TELESCOPE RENAMED FOR BRITISH ASTRONOMER ---------------------------------------------- Astronomers from around the world met in Toledo, Spain, earlier this month to discuss new scientific objectives for Europe's next-generation infrared space observatory. By the time the workshop was over, the telescope had a new name and redefined mission goals. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/22herschel/

Casini's back today! Great!

SKY & TELESCOPE'S NEWS BULLETIN - DECEMBER 22, 2000 =========================================================== For images and Web links for these items, visit http://www.skypub.com =========================================================== Axel Mellinger's composite image of the entire Milky Way was so stunning that we made it into a poster. Now, not only is there a 2nd Edition of his quick-selling panorama, Mellinger has imaged the polar regions as well to create a spectacular all-sky view. The 24-by-36- inch "Celestial Sphere" poster consists of 51 wide-angle exposures stitched together into a seamless "real" map of the entire sky. The poster comes with a key chart identifying major constellations and stars. To order either of Mellinger's posters, visit Sky Publishing's online store at http://store.skypub.com/ or call 800-253-0245. =========================================================== PLUTO MISSION BACK IN PLAY NASA officials announced on Wednesday that the space agency will again consider sending a spacecraft to Pluto. The space agency will seek proposals for mission designs in three weeks, with an eye toward selecting a winning proposal later next year. The mission plan must be developed soon in order to launch the probe by 2004 (2006 at the latest) and thus take advantage of a speed-boosting flyby of Jupiter. That could get the spacecraft to its distant destination by 2012. In making the announcement, NASA associate administrator Edward J. Weiler said he'll consider proposals for craft that would reach Pluto by 2015, whether or not a Jupiter flyby was involved, but the total cost must be well below $500 million. "This is probably our last chance to go to Pluto for a generation," Weiler noted. However, he cautioned repeatedly that there is no guarantee that a spacecraft will actually be built and launched. Still, his announcement was a dramatic change from his precipitous order last September to stop all work related to the proposed Pluto-Kuiper Express mission. The space agency had combined missions to Europa and Pluto in 1997 under a single program that shared development funds and technical expertise. But when steeply escalating costs threatened both efforts in mid-2000, Weiler opted to defer the Pluto mission indefinitely so that work could continue on the Europa orbiter. The back-to-the-drawing-board announcement came after months of lobbying by outer-planet specialists. Key to the turnaround was a late-November report by NASA's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee that recommended going to Pluto before Europa. The latter mission has higher scientific priority overall, but Pluto's atmosphere may soon freeze out as the icy world drifts farther from the Sun. Weiler said the Europa orbiter will be developed regardless of the Pluto mission's outcome, and that it will be launched no later than 2011. Meanwhile, the results of a nationwide survey, also released on Wednesday, show that the U.S. public supports the exploration of two fascinating bodies in the outer solar system. Sponsored by Sky & Telescope, the poll found that 64 percent of Americans want NASA to send a spacecraft to Europa, while 58 percent approve sending a probe to Pluto. The exploration of Mars also continues to receive strong support, as 70 percent of people would like to see samples of the red planet returned to Earth for analysis. (Details of the nationwide poll can be found at http://www.skypub.com/news/pr_001220planetpoll.html .) "We all learn in school that our solar system has nine planets," says Richard Tresch Fienberg, Sky & Telescope's editor in chief. "It's downright dissatisfying that one of them remains unvisited after 40 years of interplanetary exploration." Fienberg encourages NASA to mount a Pluto mission in an editorial appearing in the magazine's February 2000 issue at Sky & Telescope's Web site at http://www.skypub.com/news/images2000/pr_001220planetpoll.pdf . ROGER W. TUTHILL, 1919-2000 Long-time amateur astronomer and entrepreneur Roger W. Tuthill of Mountainside, New Jersey, died of heart failure on December 15th following a brief illness. He was 81. Known to myriad friends and acquaintances as Tut, it was a midlife look at the Moon through a telescope in 1960 that ignited his lasting passion for astronomy. During the ensuing decade he became an increasingly well-known amateur astronomer, publishing several important articles on telescope making in Sky & Telescope. With one of the century's longest total solar eclipses pending and organized eclipse travel almost nonexistent, Tut led a large group of amateurs to Africa's western Sahara Desert in the summer of 1973. During a preliminary scouting trip he planned to thwart the desert's intense daytime heat with a tent he made of aluminized Mylar. The experiment failed because of the tent's "maddeningly annoying" noise as it rippled in the ever-present wind. But sitting inside and looking up, Tut discovered that aluminized Mylar was a safe and effective solar filter. Sliced into small strips, pieces of the tent were handed out as free eclipse viewers to hundreds of locals in a practice he continued during 17 future eclipse expeditions. Tut patented aluminized Mylar as a solar filter and founded a small company to sell his Solar Skreen to amateurs. Eventually he added other products and quit his day job as an engineer at a welding company to run the business full time. Tut presaged the future when he introduced the first computer-pointed amateur telescope in the early 1980s, though the unit was never a commercial success. Tuthill's business was scaled back in recent years as he entered semiretirement. According to his wife, Nancy, the business will continue selling Solar Skreen and other small products. Tut was proactive in his support of several amateur organizations, including the Springfield Telescope Makers in Vermont, where he was a fixture at the club's annual Stellafane convention for three decades. For the thousands of amateurs who met Tut there and at other gatherings in North America or during his globetrotting eclipse expeditions, he will be best remembered for his strong handshake and warm, smiling greeting whether he was meeting someone for the first or 500th time. He truly was, as his company's slogan proclaimed, everyone's astronomical friend. GEORGE E. D. ALCOCK, 1912-2000 The world lost one of its foremost amateur astronomers with the death of George Eric Deacon Alcock on December 15th. He was 88. A schoolteacher from Peterborough, England, Alcock blazed into the annals of British astronomy in 1959 by discovering Comet 1959e on August 25th of that year using a pair of Zeiss 25x105 binoculars. It was the first comet discovered in the country in 65 years. Five days later, on August 30th, he swept up his second one, Comet 1959f. Despite Britain's frequently cloudy skies and increasing light pollution, Alcock went on to visually discover three more comets and five novae. His last comet discovery in 1983 was his most famous -- Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock. He found it with 15x80 binoculars while observing indoors, through the closed, double-glazed window of his upstairs bedroom! On May 11th the naked-eye comet skimmed past the Earth at only 12 times the Moon's distance (about 4.5 million kilometers), closer than any other cometary visitor since Comet Lexell in 1770. Alcock's discoveries put him in a class with another renowned English amateur, Caroline Herschel, who had a lifetime total of eight comet finds from 1786 to 1797. An avid weather observer and bird watcher, Alcock received major awards from astronomical organizations, including the naming of asteroid 3174 Alcock in his honor by the International Astronomical Union. A profile of him can be found in the May 1999 issue of Sky & Telescope (page 84). CHRISTMAS ECLIPSE Christmas Day will be extra special this year. Weather permitting, people in North America will be able to watch the Moon glide across the low December Sun, creating a partial solar eclipse. This event will be visible throughout nearly all the inhabited parts of North America (except Alaska and the Yukon), as well as from most of Mexico and the Caribbean. To find out when the eclipse will occur, how much of the Sun will be covered from your location, and how to observe it safely, see Sky & Telescope's Web site at http://www.skypub.com/sights/eclipses/solar/001225partial.html . COMET MCNAUGHT-HARTLEY IN THE MORNING Although Comet Utsunomiya-Jones (C/2000 W1) is the brightest comet in the sky right now, it is too close to the Sun to be seen. It reaches perihelion on December 26th. You have a much better chance to see the next-best comet, but you'll have to wake up early. This coming week, Eighth-magnitude Comet McNaught-Hartley (C/1999 T1) climbs some 20 to 30 deg. above the southeastern horizon before the first light of dawn for Northern Hemisphere observers. For those south of the equator, the comet will be about 20 to 25 deg. above the eastern horizon. Here are positions for McNaught-Hartley as it moves through Libra for 0 hours Universal Time in 2000.0 coordinates: Date R.A. Dec. Dec 23 14h 31m -18.7 deg. Dec 25 14 37 -17.5 Dec 27 14 42 -16.2 Dec 29 14 48 -14.9 For more about these comets, see the Special Sky Events page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0012skyevents.html . THIS WEEK'S "SKY AT A GLANCE" Some daily events in the changing sky, by the editors of Sky & Telescope. DEC. 24 -- SUNDAY * Turn a telescope on Jupiter around 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and you'll find its outer moons Ganymede and Callisto quite close together, just 12 arcseconds apart. They remain close all evening. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 8:49 p.m. EST. * Tonight the 13th-magnitude asteroid 162 Laurentia should occult (cover) a 10.5-magnitude star in Auriga along a strip of land crossing the Deep South. The occultation should happen a few minutes after 11:00 p.m. EST and should last for up to 9 seconds. Use the finder chart in the December Sky & Telescope, page 116, or at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0012skyevents.html . * The naked-eye eclipsing variable star Algol should be in one of its periodic dimmings, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours tonight centered on 12:37 a.m. EST (Christmas morning). Algol takes several additional hours to fade and to brighten. For a timetable of all its predicted minima, see http://www.skypub.com/sights/variables/algol.html . DEC. 25 -- MONDAY * A PARTIAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN happens this Christmas Day for nearly all of North America (except Alaska and the Yukon) and most of Mexico and the Caribbean. The eclipse takes place around sunrise in the American Northwest and western Canada, a little later after sunup in the Southwest and mountain states, during late morning or midday in the central part of the continent, and during early afternoon in the East. Full details, including a timetable with your local predictions and how to watch safely, are in the December Sky & Telescope, page 109, and at http://www.skypub.com/sights/eclipses/solar/001225partial.html . DEC. 26 -- TUESDAY * Some doorstep astronomy: The bright constellations of winter are enlivened by Jupiter and Saturn this year. Jupiter is currently the brightest light in the east to southeast during evening. Saturn is to its right. Far to their left is the constellation Auriga with its bright star Capella. About the same distance below Jupiter is Orion. Similarly far below Orion is Canis Major with bright Sirius, rising around midevening. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 10:27 p.m. EST. DEC. 27 -- WEDNESDAY * Algol should be near minimum light for a couple hours centered on 9:26 p.m. EST. DEC. 28 -- THURSDAY * Look southwest at dusk for the crescent Moon shining to the lower right of Venus, the bright "Evening Star." * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 11:59 p.m. EST. DEC. 29 -- FRIDAY * VENUS SHINES CLOSE TO THE CRESCENT MOON in the southwestern sky during and after dusk -- a beautiful conjunction. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 7:57 p.m. EST. DEC. 30 -- SATURDAY * The Moon shines to Venus's upper left this evening. * Algol should be near minimum light for a couple hours centered on 6:15 p.m. EST. * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 1:37 a.m. EST Sunday morning. ============================ THIS WEEK'S PLANET ROUNDUP ============================ MERCURY is hidden in the glare of the Sun. VENUS shines very brilliantly (magnitude -4.2) in the southwestern sky during and after dusk. Look well to its left or lower left (by two or three fist-widths at arm's length) for the much dimmer, 1st-magnitude star Fomalhaut. MARS (magnitude +1.5, in Virgo) glows yellow-orange high in the southeast before dawn. To its right shines Spica, slightly brighter at magnitude +1.0. JUPITER and SATURN (magnitudes -2.7 and -0.2, respectively) shine brightly in the east to southeast during early evening. Jupiter is the brighter one. Saturn appears 8 degrees (less than a fist-width at arm's length) to Jupiter's right or upper right. They're in the constellation Taurus; above Jupiter is the Pleiades star cluster, and below Jupiter sparkles orange Aldebaran. By 9 p.m. the whole group is high in the south. URANUS and NEPTUNE (invisible to the naked eye, at magnitudes 6 and 8 in Capricornus) are getting very low in the southwest just after dark. They're far in the background of Venus. PLUTO is hidden in the glow of sunrise. (All descriptions that relate to the horizon or zenith -- including the words up, down, right, and left -- are written for the world's midnorthern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude are for North America. Eastern Standard Time, EST, equals Universal Time [GMT] minus 5 hours.) More celestial events, sky maps, and news of the world's astronomy research appear each month in SKY & TELESCOPE, the essential magazine of astronomy. See our enormous Web site and astronomy bookstore at http://www.skypub.com/ . Clear skies! SKY & TELESCOPE, 49 Bay State Rd., Cambridge, MA 02138 * 617-864-7360 =========================================================== Copyright 2000 Sky Publishing Corporation. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance stargazing calendar are provided as a service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as these paragraphs are included. But the text of the bulletin and calendar may not be published in any other form without permission from Sky Publishing (contact permissions@skypub.com or phone 617-864-7360). Updates of astronomical news, including active links to related Internet resources, are available via SKY & TELESCOPE's site on the World Wide Web at http://www.skypub.com/. In cooperation with the American Association of Amateur Astronomers (http://www.corvus.com/), S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance are available via electronic mailing list. For a free subscription, send e-mail to join@astromax.com and put the word "join" on the first line of the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to unjoin@astromax.com and put the word "unjoin" on the first line of the body of the message. If you should have any problems either subscribing to or unsubscribing from the list, send a message to list administrator John Wagoner at stargate@gte.net for assistance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Check this url for next time (thanks, JSK) http://www.mreclipse.com/Totality/TotalityCh12-1.html#Right_Filter CHRISTMAS SOLAR ECLIPSE Eclipse 1 was a pinhole projection. Eclipse 2 was at the sun through a special eclipse-viewing silvered plastic. Photos by HFL December 25, 2000

thanks for these great pics!

My sister reportd in from Long Island, New York that she saw the eclipse much as did HFL in the images above. Did anyone else see it???

" NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, 25-DEC-2000: A pair of pinhole projected images of the partial solar eclipse are projected on to a piece of paper (with cartoon face drawn on) to form what looks like eyes on a happy face on Dec. 25, 2000 in New York. The solar eclipse could be viewed on Christmas Day in parts of North America. [Photo by Don Emmert, copyright 2000 by AFP and ClariNet]" Thanks HFL for sending this - very clever!!!

University of Hawaii astronomers have detected the destruction of a dark interstellar cloud by one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades cluster. George Herbig and Theodore Simon, with the Institute for Astronomy, obtained high-resolution images in September with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Pleiades, a famous navigational signpost for Hawaiians, formed about 100 million years ago from interstellar clouds, Herbig explained. The small group of bright blue stars is named for the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology. Easily seen in the night sky during winter months, the cluster resembles a small dipper, lying in the constellation Taurus about 380 light years from Earth. "Moving through space, it shed all the material from which it was born, but if you look at it from photographs, it is covered with dusty clouds," Herbig said. "Stars shine on the clouds and create luminosity. "So it's kind of like a star seen through frosted glass. It's covered with smoky stuff, which is really dust illuminated by stars." Not far from Pleiades is a big dark cloud of cold gas and dust, Herbig said. "It just happens that Pleiades, by pure accident, is passing through the edge of the dust cloud, like an airplane." One little piece of cloud happens to be close to the bright Pleiades star Merope, which is reflecting light off the black clouds like a flashlight beam, Herbig said. American astronomer E.E. Barnard discovered bright nebulosity next to Merope in 1890. "Barnard's Merope Nebula" is the brightest place in the conglomeration of dust around Pleiades, Herbig said. "It just happens that the brightest reflection of nebula luminosity is not shown on ordinary photographs. This little glob of stuff ... that's what we studied." The Hubble image doesn't show Merope itself but caught wispy tendrils of the interstellar cloud passing by the bright star. No one has ever been able to measure the motion of dust clouds because they're so amorphous, Herbig said. "But it turns out it's possible to associate a position and motion of this little glob of stuff, Merope nebula, with the motion of dark clouds nearby." Thus, he said, he and Simon were able to map the approach of Pleiades to the unrelated mass of dust of interstellar material. The star is so close and shining on the dust with such intensity that it is starting to fray and dissipate, Herbig said. The same phenomenon is at work with Merope and the interstellar cloud as occurs with comet tails, he explained. "We see dust tails of comets blown away from the comet's head by radiation pressure of the sun, because it exerts a force. It can drive the dust back in the opposite direction." Space telescope images show radiation pressure from Merope also is destroying the cloud, Herbig said. In a couple of thousand years, as it gets closer to the star, the nebula may be blown apart completely, he said. "Or, it may be just like comets that go past the sun repeatedly and lose dust." People have always thought dust clouds were structureless masses of gas and dust, Herbig said. "This picture has shown us there is fine structure, all full of filaments and ridges and globs." Like leaves of trees that have veins and structure, he said, "it looks like structure inside these interstellar clouds. This is something we didn't appreciate before."

=========================================================== SKY & TELESCOPE'S NEWS BULLETIN - DECEMBER 29, 2000 =========================================================== For images and Web links for these items, visit http://www.skypub.com =========================================================== Axel Mellinger's composite image of the entire Milky Way was so stunning that we made it into a poster. Now, not only is there a 2nd Edition of his quick-selling panorama, Mellinger has imaged the polar regions as well to create a spectacular all-sky view. The 24-by-36- inch "Celestial Sphere" poster consists of 51 wide-angle exposures stitched together into a seamless "real" map of the entire sky. The poster comes with a key chart identifying major constellations and stars. To order either of Mellinger's posters, visit Sky Publishing's online store at http://store.skypub.com/ or call 800-253-0245. =========================================================== SATURN'S SATELLITES: 30 AND COUNTING Brett Gladman (Nice Observatory) and his international observing partners have announced their discovery of two more moons around Saturn. One of the new finds, designated S/2000 S 11, was spotted on November 9th by team member Matthew Holman with the 1.2-meter reflector at Whipple Observatory in Arizona. Gladman and J. J. Kavelaars (McMaster University) spotted S/2000 S 12 on September 23rd using the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii telescope on Mauna Kea. It is probably only 5 kilometers across, whereas S 11 has a diameter of perhaps 35 km. Counting these additions, Saturn now has 30 known moons -- 19 of which were found in the past 20 years. The dozen discovered by Gladman's team appear to fall into three orbital groupings: most travel in the same direction that Saturn rotates and have orbital inclinations that cluster near 35 and 48 deg.; the third group travels in the reverse (retrograde) direction with inclinations near 170 deg. "The situation of Saturn thus seems to resemble that of Jupiter," Gladman notes, "which also has one prograde and one retrograde cluster." A WARMER EARLY UNIVERSE The Big Bang is one of the most widely known and debated theories in cosmology. Most theorists assume the explosion was hot, and that the universe has since cooled dramatically. Although we know the current temperature of remnant Big Bang radiation, called the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), until now, no one has made a direct measurement of the temperature of ancient Big Bang radiation. Today, the background radiation is only 2.7 deg. Kelvin, but theoretically the farther back in time we look, the hotter the CMBR should be. Using the 8.2-meter Kueyen reflector of the Very Large Telescope in Chile, Raghunathan Srianand (Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics), Patrick Petitjean (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris) and Cedric Ledoux (European Southern Observatory) were able to measure the temperature of the CMBR when the universe was only 2.5 billion years old. They found that back then the cosmos was between 6 and 14 deg. Kelvin. The team's results -- announced in the December 21st issue of Nature -- came from observations of the distant quasar PKS 1235+0815. By examining at the object's spectrum, the astronomers found the signatures of carbon and hydrogen that only occur at these specific temperatures. Their result is in line with other theorists who predicted that the CMBR should be 9.7 deg. K at that cosmic era. COMET MCNAUGHT-HARTLEY IN THE MORNING If you got new binoculars or a telescope for Christmas, try training it on the 8th-magnitude Comet McNaught-Hartley (C/1999 T1). The comet reaches some 25 to 30 deg. above the southeastern horizon before the first light of dawn for Northern Hemisphere observers. For those south of the equator, the comet will be about 20 to 25 deg. above the eastern horizon. Here are positions for McNaught-Hartley as it moves through Libra for 0 hours Universal Time in 2000.0 coordinates: Date R.A. Dec. Dec 30 14h 31m -18.7 deg. Jan 1 14 56 -12.8 Jan 3 15 02 -11.3 Jan 5 15 08 -09.8 For more about the comet, see the Special Sky Events page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0101skyevents.html . QUADRANTID METEORS You won't need optical aid to see the peak of the Quadrantid meteor shower -- but you'll still have to wake up before dawn. The peak is expected on January 3rd at about 12 hours Universal Time, which corresponds in North America to 6 a.m. Central Standard Time and 4 a.m. Pacific. This year the first-quarter Moon will pose no interference, for it sets shortly after midnight and leaves the skies fully dark from then on. Toward dawn is when the shower radiant, halfway between the head of Draco and the end of the Big Dipper's handle, is highest in the sky. The "Quads" have a very sharp peak lasting only two hours or so. But if you're watching when it arrives, this can be one of the year's best meteor displays. Between midnight and dawn in good years, 40 or more of these moderately swift meteors may be seen per hour. Deviations of up to six hours from the predicted time of the peak have been noted in past years, so observers not just in North America but also in western Europe and Japan should be on the lookout for Quadrantids. DOUBLE SHADOWS ON JUPITER Here's another telescopic target: On Sunday evening, January 7th, observers in eastern North America and all of South America have ringside seats to watch the shadows of not one, but two, Galilean satellites crossing the disk of Jupiter simultaneously. Ganymede's shadow will first appear on Jupiter's east limb at 9:35 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Io's shadow joins it at 10:13 p.m. For the next hour and a half, both shadows should remain visible in small telescopes as dark spots on the planet's disk. Ganymede's is the first to leave, at 11:44 p.m., followed by Io's at 12:24 a.m. EST (on January 8th). For an illustration of how Jupiter should appear, see the January Special Sky Events Page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0101skyevents.html . One week later, a repeat of this event occurs for observers in western North America. On Sunday evening, January 14th, Io's shadow begins its march at 9:08 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, to be joined by that of Ganymede at 10:36 p.m. Then at 11:23 p.m. Io's shadow leaves the disk, followed by Ganymede's at 12:46 a.m. PST (on the 15th). THIS WEEK'S "SKY AT A GLANCE" Some daily events in the changing sky, by the editors of Sky & Telescope. DEC. 31 -- SUNDAY * Midnight tonight marks the beginning of the 21st Century and the Third Millennium. After the midnight New Year's celebrations, step outside into the quiet dark and look up. Sirius will be shining at its highest in the south. Orion will be to its upper right, and Procyon will be a similar distance to Sirius's upper left. One thousand years from now, this sky scene will be very much the same -- except that due to precession, the stars will be nearly an hour east of their present midnight positions. Tonight Jupiter and Saturn shine in Taurus high in the west-southwest, but on January 1, 3001, their midnight places will be taken by the full Moon shining near Aldebaran and by bright Mars blazing close to the Pleiades. That much is predictable. But turn your gaze down, and prediction becomes impossible. What wonders, or desolation, will cover the landscape under the silent stars? * Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter's central meridian (the imaginary line down the center of the planet's disk from pole to pole) around 9:38 p.m. EST. The "red" spot is very pale orange-tan. It should be visible in a good 4- or 6-inch telescope if the atmospheric seeing is sharp and steady. For a list of all predicted Red Spot transit times, see http://www.skypub.com/sights/moonplanets/redspot.html . JAN. 1 -- MONDAY * As soon as darkness falls, look rather low in the northwest for Vega, the "Summer Star" lingering all the way into the following year. * Saturn's largest moon, Titan, appears three or four ring-lengths east of Saturn this evening and tomorrow evening. A 3-inch telescope should show it. JAN. 2 -- TUESDAY * First-quarter Moon (exact at 5:31 p.m. Eastern Standard Time). * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 11:16 p.m. EST. * Watch for the Quadrantid meteors just before dawn in central and western North America. JAN. 3 -- WEDNESDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 7:08 p.m. EST. JAN. 4 -- THURSDAY * Latest sunrise of the year (if you live near 40 degrees north latitude). * The Earth is at perihelion, its closest to the Sun for the year (3.4 percent closer than at aphelion in July). * Jupiter's moon Europa crosses Jupiter's face from 9:11 to 11:45 p.m. EST, followed by its tiny black shadow from 10:57 p.m. to 1:33 a.m. Friday morning EST. JAN. 5 -- FRIDAY * The Moon shines close to Saturn this evening, with brighter Jupiter to their left. JAN. 6 -- SATURDAY * The Moon shines near Aldebaran this evening, with Jupiter and Saturn to their upper right. * Jupiter's moon Europa reappears from eclipse out of Jupiter's shadow around 7:46 p.m. EST. A small telescope will show it gradually emerging into view a little east of the planet. ============================ THIS WEEK'S PLANET ROUNDUP ============================ MERCURY is hidden in the glare of the Sun. VENUS shines very brilliantly (magnitude -4.3) in the southwestern sky during and after dusk. MARS (magnitude +1.4, at the Virgo-Libra border) glows yellow-orange high in the south-southeast before dawn. To its upper right shines Spica, slightly brighter at magnitude +1.0. JUPITER and SATURN (magnitudes -2.6 and -0.3, respectively) shine brightly high in the southeast to south during evening. Jupiter is the brightest one. Yellowish Saturn appears 8 degrees (less than a fist-width at arm's length) to Jupiter's right. They're in the constellation Taurus; above Jupiter is the Pleiades star cluster, and farther to Jupiter's lower left sparkles orange Aldebaran. URANUS and NEPTUNE are getting very low in the southwest just after dark. PLUTO is hidden in the glow of sunrise. (All descriptions that relate to the horizon or zenith -- including the words up, down, right, and left -- are written for the world's midnorthern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude are for North America. Eastern Standard Time, EST, equals Universal Time [GMT] minus 5 hours.) More celestial events, sky maps, and news of the world's astronomy research appear each month in SKY & TELESCOPE, the essential magazine of astronomy. See our enormous Web site and astronomy bookstore at http://www.skypub.com/ . Clear skies! SKY & TELESCOPE, 49 Bay State Rd., Cambridge, MA 02138 * 617-864-7360 =========================================================== Copyright 2000 Sky Publishing Corporation. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance stargazing calendar are provided as a service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as these paragraphs are included. But the text of the bulletin and calendar may not be published in any other form without permission from Sky Publishing (contact permissions@skypub.com or phone 617-864-7360). Updates of astronomical news, including active links to related Internet resources, are available via SKY & TELESCOPE's site on the World Wide Web at http://www.skypub.com/. In cooperation with the American Association of Amateur Astronomers (http://www.corvus.com/), S&T's Weekly News Bulletin and Sky at a Glance are available via electronic mailing list. For a free subscription, send e-mail to join@astromax.com and put the word "join" on the first line of the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to unjoin@astromax.com and put the word "unjoin" on the first line of the body of the message. If you should have any problems either subscribing to or unsubscribing from the list, send a message to list administrator John Wagoner at stargate@gte.net for assistance.

NEWSALERT: Sunday, December 31, 2000 @ 1653 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now CASSINI AND GALILEO SPACE PROBES DOUBLE-TEAM JUPITER ---------------------------------------------------- Joint observations of Jupiter by NASA's Cassini and Galileo spacecraft are providing an unprecedented look at the giant planet's atmosphere and magnetosphere, scientists said Saturday, just hours after Cassini made its closest approach to the solar system's largest planet. (Includes video and sounds of Jupiter clips!) http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/30flyby/ See our complete Cassini flyby coverage: http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/ YEAR'S END FOR GALILEO ---------------------- The end of the year 2000 finds the Galileo spacecraft starting to wrap up another encounter with the Jovian system. The spacecraft's camera takes the stage over the weekend, with observations to capture global color views of Io, plus images of Jupiter's main ring. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/31galileo/ FROM THE ARCHIVES IN 2000 ------------------------- GO FOR A RIDE WITH ROCKETCAMS! http://spaceflightnow.com/features/rocketcams/ TOP 10 IMAGES FROM COMMERCIAL EYE-IN-THE-SKY http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0009/25ikonos/ SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA UNDERGOES TUNE-UP http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/features/000414overhaul/

An Ailing Neil asked me to post this for him. With pleasure and get well, soon! From Earth to Mars in as little as two weeks Jan 3, 2001 BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL - Scientists at Ben-Gurion University have shown that an unusual nuclear fuel could send space vehicles from Earth to Mars in as little as two weeks. Spacecraft now take between eight and 10 months to make the same trip. The research shows a fairly rare nuclear material, americium-242m (Am-242m), when used as an extremely thin metallic film, is capable of sustaining nuclear fission. When the film is less than a thousandth of a millimetre thick, the high-energy, high-temperature products of fission can escape the fuel and be used for propulsion in space. Obtaining fission-fragments like this isn't possible with the better-known uranium-235 and plutonium-239 nuclear fuels: they require large fuel rods, which absorb fission products. Long-time interest Dr. Yigal Ronen, the author of the study, became interested in nuclear reactors for space vehicles 15 years ago at a conference. Speaker after speaker talked about the use of nuclear reactors for powering space missions - and stressed that the mass of any reactor would be the defining factor. It had to be light in order to be efficient. So Ronen decided to examine one aspect of reactor design - the nuclear fuel itself. That led him to Am-242m. By using this element, Ronen was able to cut the amount of fuel necessary to reach maximum power. To achieve the same result as uranium or plutonium requires only one per cent of the amount (mass) when Am-242m is used. But use of this fuel is still in the very early stages of development. "There are still many hurdles to overcome before americium-242m can be used in space," Ronen says. Producing large quantities of Am-242m requires several steps and is expensive. Design of the reactor, refuelling, heat removal and safety provisions also need to be examined. In spite of the hurdles, Ronen remains optimistic about the future of this fuel. "I am sure that americium-242m will eventually be implemented for space travel, as it is the only proven material whose fission products can be made available for high speed propulsion." The study was published in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A (455: 442-451, 2000).

NEWSALERT: Thursday, January 4, 2001 @ 0610 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now HUBBLE: X MARKS THE SPOT OF STAR FORMATION GLOW ----------------------------------------------- The saying "X" marks the spot holds true in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image where Hubble-X marks the location of a dramatic burst of star formation, very much like the Orion Nebula in our Milky Way galaxy, but on a vastly greater scale. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/04hubblex/ MASSIVE GAS CLOUD FOUND NEAR YOUNG GALAXY ----------------------------------------- A massive gas cloud with the raw materials to form 100 billion stars could reshape theories of galaxy formation. Astronomers say a distant young galaxy harbors a unexpectedly massive cloud of hydrogen gas that may fuel a burst of star formation. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/04galaxygas/ SHUTTLE ATLANTIS ARRIVES ON SEASIDE LAUNCH PAD ---------------------------------------------- After a day's delay because of computer troubles, space shuttle Atlantis made a 3.5-mile, six-hour crawl to launch pad 39A Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center. Atlantis is being prepared for blastoff later this month to carry the $1.4 billion U.S. Destiny laboratory module to the international space station. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/stage5a/010103rollout/ SHUTTLE ROLLOUT PANORAMA ------------------------ As space shuttle Atlantis rolled atop Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A, Spaceflight Now was there to capture this 360-degree panorama. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/stage5a/010103rollout/rollout_qtvr.html EXPEDITION ONE CREW TROUBLESHOOTS BATTERY PROBLEM ------------------------------------------------- The international space station's Expedition One crew moved into its tenth week in orbit Wednesday aboard the orbiting outpost. The only technical issue being addressed by Russian flight controllers involves a minor problem with battery three in the Zvezda service module. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/status.html BOEING WINS POTENTIAL $1.3B FOR SIX MILITARY SATELLITES ------------------------------------------------------- Boeing has been picked to led the charge in developing the U.S. military's next-generation Wideband Gapfiller Satellite communications network, which could lead to the company building as many as six spacecraft for the system. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/04gapfiller/ ARIANESPACE SETS MONDAY LAUNCH DATE FOR STALLED ARIANE 4 -------------------------------------------------------- Activity at Guiana Space Center's Ariane 4 launch pad is once again bustling as Arianespace has announced that Flight 137 is back on track for blastoff next week after a month-long delay caused by the rocket's Turkish communications satellite cargo. http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html

NEWSALERT: Friday, January 5, 2001 @ 0617 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now PLANETS ORBITING OTHER STARS COULD BE MORE PLENTIFUL ---------------------------------------------------- The number of stars with extrasolar planets may be much larger than previously thought, scientists studying several nearby stars concluded this week. Research shows that clouds of molecular hydrogen gas, the raw material for gas giant planets like Jupiter, may last millions of years longer than once believed, making it much easier for such planets to form. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/05extrasolar/ NASA MULLS OPTIONS FOR FUTURE LOW-COST EXPLORER ----------------------------------------------- On beat with its "faster, better, cheaper" rhythm, NASA on Thursday announced the selection of three proposed low-cost missions for further in-depth study, including one that seeks to find habitable planets outside our solar system. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/05discovery/ COMPLETELY DARK GALAXIES ------------------------ The universe could be harboring numerous galaxies that have no stars at all and are made entirely of dark matter. Astronomers may ultimately discover that completely dark galaxies outnumber the familiar kind populated by shining stars and gas, perhaps by as many as 100 to 1. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/05dark/ CASSINI PROBE KEEPS ITS SCIENTIFIC EYE ON JUPITER ----------------------------------------------- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has continued collecting new scientific information from Jupiter's environs every day since making its closest approach to the giant planet on Saturday, and is scheduled to keep studying the Jupiter system for another three months while proceeding on toward Saturn. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/05cassini/ See our complete Cassini special report: http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/ HUBBLE: X MARKS THE SPOT OF STAR FORMATION GLOW ----------------------------------------------- The saying "X" marks the spot holds true in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image where Hubble-X marks the location of a dramatic burst of star formation, very much like the Orion Nebula in our Milky Way galaxy, but on a vastly greater scale. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/04hubblex/ SHUTTLE ROLLOUT PANORAMA ------------------------ As space shuttle Atlantis rolled atop Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A, Spaceflight Now was there to capture this 360-degree panorama. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/stage5a/010103rollout/rollout_qtvr.html

10 new moons found around Jupiter / 2 rocket launches today NEWSALERT: Monday, January 8, 2001 @ 0552 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now 10 ADDITIONAL MOONS DISCOVERED AROUND JUPITER --------------------------------------------- An unprecedented surge in planetary moon discoveries continues as astronomers announced Friday the discovery of 10 more moons orbiting Jupiter. The ten natural satellites were first spotted in late November and early December by a group of astronomers at the University of Hawaii. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/08jovianmoons/ ARIANESPACE ARIANE 4 TO ROCKET INTO 2001 ---------------------------------------- If an Ariane 4 rocket launches on time Monday it will have the distinction as planet Earth's first space flight of 2001. If the European launcher can deliver its Turkish communications satellite cargo into the correct orbit it will mark the workhorse Ariane 4's 60th consecutive success. We will have complete live coverage! http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html SEA LAUNCH TO LOFT FIRST XM RADIO SATELLITE TODAY ------------------------------------------------- The three-stage Ukrainian-Russian Zenit 3SL rocket was rolled from its hangar and erected atop the Odyssey launch platform Sunday as the countdown ticked away for Monday's scheduled 2235 GMT (5:35 p.m. EST) blastoff. We will have live coverage of the launch as the first XM Satellite Radio craft is boosted to orbit! http://spaceflightnow.com/sealaunch/xm1/status.html Watch an animation clip of XM 1 satellite: http://spaceflightnow.com/sealaunch/xm1/010107anim_qt.html NASA'S CORE POLICY OVER LAST DECADE GETS CLOSER LOOK ---------------------------------------------------- A team of NASA officials not long ago completed a thorough review of the space agency's "faster, better, cheaper" policy. The 83-page report highlights recommendations for where these policies and programs should be headed and how to improve them enough to get them there. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/08nasareview/ SPACE SHUTTLES THAT REPAIR TECHNICAL GLITCHES ON THE FLY -------------------------------------------------------- Ever stop and think about the millions of dollars spent on fancy space equipment that breaks down? If you are millions of miles away orbiting the Earth, there's no repairman available to fix the problem. The answer: machines that are smart enough to learn from experience, detect problems and fix themselves. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/07fixitshuttle/ RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL SIGNS OFF ON MIR DEORBITING ------------------------------------------------------- Space station Mir's destruction upon burning up during re-entry seems even more certain with the announcement by a Russian Space Agency spokesperson that the Russian Prime Minister has signed an order mandating the deorbiting late next month. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/07mirok/ AUSTRALIAN SALT LAKE HELPS TEST NASA 'SKY EYE' ---------------------------------------------- A team of scientists has just spent a week in a huge barren salt lake in Australia's interior helping to test a new NASA satellite -- the Earth Observing 1 technology demonstrator. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/07eo1test/ SEASONS GREETINGS FROM THE MARTIAN NORTH POLE! ---------------------------------------------- As many children across the U.S. and elsewhere anticipating an annual visit from a generous and jolly red-suited soul from the Earth's North Pole, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor was busy acquiring new views of the region around the Martian North Pole. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/06marscaps/

Sea Launch aborts liftoff / Cat's Eye nebula revealed NEWSALERT: Tuesday, January 9, 2001 @ 0728 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now SEA LAUNCH ABORTS LIFTOFF IN FINAL SECONDS OF COUNTDOWN ------------------------------------------------------- A last-moment concern with the XM 1 radio broadcasting satellite cargo led to a frantic halt to the countdown of Sea Launch's Zenit 3SL rocket on Monday with clocks stopping 11 seconds before blastoff from the Odyssey platform in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. http://spaceflightnow.com/sealaunch/xm1/status.html Watch video clip of countdown abort: http://spaceflightnow.com/sealaunch/xm1/010108abort_qt.html CHANDRA REVEALS THE X-RAY GLINT IN THE CAT'S EYE NEBULA ------------------------------------------------------- Scientists have discovered a glowing bubble of hot gas and an unexpected X-ray bright central star within the planetary nebula known as the Cat's Eye using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The new results provide insight into the ways that stars like our Sun end their lives. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/09chandraeye/ ARIANESPACE ARIANE 4 ROCKET LAUNCH DELAYED 24 HOURS --------------------------------------------------- Gusty high altitude winds above the jungle launch site in Kourou, French Guiana forced Arianespace to scrub Monday's planned liftoff of an Ariane 4 rocket carrying the Eurasiasat 1 telecommunications satellite. Officials are hoping for improved conditions Tuesday evening. http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html ASTRONOMERS MAP OUT LARGEST STRUCTURE IN DISTANT UNIVERSE --------------------------------------------------------- By reading the light from the fiery heart of unimaginably remote galaxies, astronomers have discovered evidence for an immense concentration of galaxies over 6.5 billion light years away in the largest known group of quasars, possibly the largest structure anywhere in the observable universe. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/09lgstructure/ RARE SPHERICAL NEBULA HELPS MEASURE STARS' COMPOSITION ------------------------------------------------------ The simple spherical geometry of the beautiful planetary nebula Abell 39 will help astronomers identify the source of very serious errors in measuring the chemical composition of dying stars. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/09rarenebula/ EVIDENCE PRESENTED FOR NEW SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION MODEL ---------------------------------------------------- New research, based on observations of a brilliant supernova, is challenging existing models of how one type of the powerful explosions take place in the Universe. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/09supernova/

No Wonder I could not find it - had it posted in Archaeology!!! =========================================================== SKY & TELESCOPE'S NEWS BULLETIN - JANUARY 5, 2001 =========================================================== For images and Web links for these items, visit http://www.skypub.com =========================================================== Axel Mellinger's composite image of the entire Milky Way was so stunning that we made it into a poster. Now, not only is there a 2nd Edition of his quick-selling panorama, Mellinger has imaged the polar regions as well to create a spectacular all-sky view. The 24-by-36- inch "Celestial Sphere" poster consists of 51 wide-angle exposures stitched together into a seamless "real" map of the entire sky. The poster comes with a key chart identifying major constellations and stars. To order either of Mellinger's posters, visit Sky Publishing's online store at http://store.skypub.com/ or call 800-253-0245. =========================================================== ASTRONOMERS FLOCK TO SAN DIEGO The 197th meeting of the American Astronomical Society will be held January 7-11 in San Diego, California. Visit Sky & Telescope's Web site (http://www.skypub.com/) for late-breaking news reports filed by S&T's on-the-scene editors Rick Fienberg and Alan MacRobert. CELEBRATING CERES AT 200 On the first night of 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi saw a "star" that didn't belong in the field of his little refractor mounted atop the royal palace at Palermo, Italy. "I have announced this star as a comet," he wrote later that January, "but . . . it has occurred to me several times that it might be something better." He had, in fact, spotted the first minor planet, which was soon named Ceres, after the Roman goddess of the harvest and the patron goddess of Sicily. Exactly 200 years later, an eclectic mix of astronomers, artisans, philosophers, and historians gathered in Palermo to celebrate the Theatine monk's discovery. In a lecture prior to the group's party to mark the beginning of the new, true millennium, Giorgia Fodera-Serio pointed out that Piazzi's then state-of-the-art telescope has now been completely restored. All its parts are original, except for the eyepiece, and it has been remounted atop the former palace. At the time, Piazzi's discovery seemed to be the long-sought confirmation of what today is known as the Titius-Bode "law." First publicized in 1772, it neatly described the orbital spacings of the five planets then known. But there was one glaring glitch: the law predicted a planet between Mars and Jupiter, but none was known. Ceres seemed to fulfill the law's prophesy. After the newcomer passed through the Sun's glare and emerged once again into the night sky, it was recovered by Franz von Zach the night preceding the first anniversary of its discovery. Three months later, Heinrich Olbers discovered the second minor planet, Pallas. That posed a serious problem for the Titius-Bode law -- now there were two planets where only one should be. But by then Piazzi and others had already begun to doubt that Ceres measured up to full-planet status. Even to these early observers, it was evident that Ceres was too small to qualify. Today we know that this largest minor planet is only about 930 kilometers in diameter, a quarter the size of the Moon. And we know that Ceres is accompanied by thousands of similar bodies that inhabit the so-called asteroid belt. PATRICK MOORE TO BE KNIGHTED Patrick Moore has been England's unofficial prince of astronomy for more than four decades. At the end of last month, Buckingham Palace announced that he will receive the country's highest royal recognition when Queen Elizabeth II will bestow knighthood upon him for "services to the popularisation of science and to broadcasting." Moore, 77, has written and starred in the BBC television series "The Sky at Night" for 44 years, making it the world's longest-running television show with a single host. Americans and the rest of the world are probably more familiar with some of his approximately 100 books and numerous magazine articles. He has been an active amateur astronomer since even before joining the British Astronomical Association at age 11. Unfortunately, his observing may have come to an abrupt end. Moore explains that a deterioration of his spine has left him unable to use his telescope or to write. "Writing is impossible, and even typing is very difficult and slow," he told Sky & Telescope. "Unfortunately there seems little to be done about it, and I have to accept that my really active life has come to a sudden and premature end." Nevertheless, Moore hopes to be able to continue with "The Sky at Night" for a while longer. For additional details about Moore's astronomical career, see David Levy's profile in the May 1997 issue of Sky & Telescope (page 106). CASSINI'S NEW GROOVE The Cassini spacecraft and its attached Huygens probe swept past Jupiter on December 30th at a distance of 9.7 million kilometers, close enough to boost the combined craft's velocity and redirect it toward an encounter with Saturn in 3-1/2 years. The end-of-the-year passage also gave project scientists a chance to flex their instruments' muscles with studies of the planet, some of its moons, and its magnetosphere. Cassini had to stop taking measurements on December 17th due to a mechanical glitch, but engineers fixed the problem within five days and data-taking resumed on the 28th. Many of the investigations involved sampling the solar-wind upstream of the immense Jovian magnetosphere. Speaking to reporters hours after the spacecraft came closet to Jupiter, investigator William Kurth (University of Iowa) noted that Cassini had crossed the magnetosphere's bow shock (where the solar wind is abruptly decelerated) about a day earlier than anticipated. This meant that the planet's magnetic bubble extended sunward about twice as far as had been predicted based on Voyager data from 1979. Apparently, an unusually slow and weak solar wind allowed the Jovian magnetosphere to expand upstream. Dramatic new images and animations show that the giant planet's cloud features are as turbulent as ever. "The camera has performed beyond our wildest imaginings," beamed imaging-team leader Carolyn Porco (University of Arizona). A time-lapse movie of the planet's faint ring revealed no new structure appears in the ring itself, though the inner moonlets Metis and Adrastea (thought to provide much of the ring's particles) could be seen racing around in their orbits. Team member Andrew Ingersoll (Caltech) described the tortured lives of small cloud eddies within the Jovian atmosphere -- one of the scientific objectives that the Galileo spacecraft could not fully accomplish due to the limited amount of data that it can relay to Earth through its damaged antenna. Otherwise Galileo continues to function well after five years in orbit around Jupiter. While Cassini examined the planet from afar, Galileo made a series of complementary observations from about 500,000 km away. For example, both spacecraft examined Ganymede and Io for auroral activity when each moon was in Jupiter's shadow. On December 28th Galileo skirted 2,337 km from Ganymede, a close pass that should improve knowledge of the big moon's surface features, magnetic field, and interior structure. A KUIPER BELT GIANT Fame is fleeting in the rapidly growing realm of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs). Last March astronomers spotted 2000 EB173, which has an estimated diameter of 600 kilometers. But that object quickly lost its distinction as the year's largest discovery. On November 28th Robert S. McMillan and later Jeffrey A. Larsen found a 20th-magnitude blip designated 2000 WR106. Initially its size was uncertain, and for a while observers believed it might exceed the diameter of 1 Ceres, the largest asteroid (933 km), or even Pluto's moon, Charon (1,250 km). Gauging the diameter of 2000 WR106 accurately required firmer estimates for its distance and the reflectivity of its surface. Fortunately, German amateur astronomers Andre Knoefel and Reiner Stoss identified the object on photographic plates taken in 1955 with the 48-inch Schmidt telescope on Palomar Mountain. Those positions proved crucial in clinching an orbit with a mean distance of 43 astronomical units (6.4 billion km) from the Sun, an eccentricity of 0.06, and an inclination of 17 deg. Clues to the diameter of 2000 WR106 came on December 30th, when David C. Jewitt and Herve Aussel (University of Hawaii) used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea to measure its brightness at a wavelength of 350 microns. Combining this data with the object's visual and near-infrared brightness yielded a very dark albedo of 7 percent (so its surface is unlikely to have a widespread coating of frost). The diameter lies somewhere between 750 and 1,000 km -- most likely near 900. Thus 2000 WR106 does indeed challenge Ceres for the title of "largest known minor planet." COMET MCNAUGHT-HARTLEY CLIMBS HIGHER Comet McNaught-Hartley (C/1999 T1) continues to climb in the morning sky. The object, a hair brighter than 8th magnitude according to observers, continues moving through Libra this coming week. You can spot it some 30 to 35 deg. above the southeastern horizon before the first light of dawn for Northern Hemisphere observers; about a dozen degrees to the upper left of Mars. For those south of the equator, the comet will be about 20 to 30 deg. above the eastern horizon, to the lower left of Mars. Here are positions for McNaught-Hartley for 0 hours Universal Time in 2000.0 coordinates: Date R.A. Dec. Jan 6 15h 10m -9.1 deg. Jan 8 15 16 -7.5 Jan 10 15 22 -5.9 Jan 12 15 27 -4.2 For more about the comet, see the Special Sky Events page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0101skyevents.html . DOUBLE SHADOWS ON JUPITER On Sunday evening, January 7th, observers in eastern North America and all of South America have ringside seats to watch the shadows of not one, but two, Galilean satellites crossing the disk of Jupiter simultaneously. Ganymede's shadow will first appear on Jupiter's east limb at 9:35 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Io's shadow joins it at 10:13 p.m. For the next hour and a half, both shadows should remain visible in small telescopes as dark spots on the planet's disk. Ganymede's is the first to leave, at 11:44 p.m., followed by Io's at 12:24 a.m. EST (on January 8th). For an illustration of how Jupiter should appear, see the January Special Sky Events Page at http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0101skyevents.html . One week later, a repeat of this event occurs for observers in western North America. On Sunday evening, January 14th, Io's shadow begins its march at 9:08 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, to be joined by that of Ganymede at 10:36 p.m. Then at 11:23 p.m. Io's shadow leaves the disk, followed by Ganymede's at 12:46 a.m. PST (on the 15th). THIS WEEK'S "SKY AT A GLANCE" Some daily events in the changing sky, by the editors of Sky & Telescope. JAN. 7 -- SUNDAY * Tonight the dark limb of the waxing gibbous Moon will occult (cover) the 3.0-magnitude star Zeta Tauri for observers all across North America. You can watch the star wink out using a small telescope or even binoculars. A timetable is in the January Sky & Telescope, page 118. * Double shadow transit on Jupiter: The tiny black shadows of Jupiter's moons Ganymede and Io are both on the planet's face from 10:13 to 11:44 p.m. EST. A good 3-inch telescope should be all you need -- if the atmospheric seeing is good. * Meanwhile, Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter's central meridian (the imaginary line down the center of the planet's disk from pole to pole) around 10:24 p.m. EST. The "red" spot is very pale orange-tan. It should be visible in a good 4- or 6-inch telescope if the atmospheric seeing is sharp and steady. For a list of all predicted Red Spot transit times, see http://www.skypub.com/sights/moonplanets/redspot.html . * Dawn begins at its latest for the year (if you live near 40 degrees north latitude). JAN. 8 -- MONDAY * This evening Saturn's brightest moon, 8.5-magnitude Titan, appears close to a 7th-magnitude star. They're closest, 21 arcseconds apart, around 6 p.m. EST. A 3-inch telescope should show them; look three ring-lengths west-northwest of the planet. JAN. 9 -- TUESDAY * Full Moon (exact at 3:24 p.m. EST). During the evening, look for Pollux and Castor to the Moon's upper left and brighter Procyon shining farther to the Moon's lower right. * TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE FOR ASIA, AFRICA, AND EUROPE. Partial eclipse begins at 18:42 Universal Time (GMT) January 9th, total eclipse begins at 19:50 UT; total ends at 20:52 UT, partial ends at 21:59 UT. For full details see the January Sky & Telescope, page 124, or http://www.skypub.com/sights/eclipses/lunar/0101totallunar.html . * Jupiter's Red Spot should transit around 12:03 a.m. EST Wednesday morning. JAN. 10 -- WEDNESDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 7:54 p.m. EST. JAN. 11 -- THURSDAY * Look for Regulus below the Moon after they rise in mid- to late evening. JAN. 12 -- FRIDAY * Jupiter's Red Spot transits around 9:33 p.m. EST. JAN. 13 -- SATURDAY * Jupiter's moon Europa emerges from eclipse out of Jupiter's shadow around 10:24 p.m. EST. A small telescope will show it swelling into brilliance during the course of a minute or two, a little east of the planet. ============================ THIS WEEK'S PLANET ROUNDUP ============================ MERCURY is buried deep in the glow of sunset. Late this week, try looking for it with binoculars just above the west-southwest horizon (far to the lower right of Venus) about 20 to 30 minutes after sunset. Next week Mercury will get higher. VENUS is the brilliant object (magnitude -4.4) shining in the southwest during and after dusk. MARS (magnitude +1.2, at the Virgo-Libra border) glows yellow-orange in the south-southeast before dawn. To its right or upper right is blue-white Spica, similarly bright. JUPITER and SATURN (magnitudes -2.6 and -0.3, respectively) shine brightly high in the southeast to south during early to mid-evening. Jupiter is the brightest. Yellowish Saturn appears 7 or 8 degrees (about four fingers' widths at arm's length) to Jupiter's right. They're in the constellation Taurus; above Jupiter is the Pleiades star cluster, and farther to Jupiter's lower left sparkles orange Aldebaran. The whole pattern rotates clockwise and shifts toward the west as evening grows late. URANUS and NEPTUNE are hidden in the glow of sunset. PLUTO (magnitude 14; invisible without a large telescope) is very low in the east-southeast before dawn. (All descriptions that relate to the horizon or zenith -- including the words up, down, right, and left -- are written for the world's midnorthern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude are for North America. Eastern Standard Time, EST, equals Universal Time [GMT] minus 5 hours.)

Britons Get Front Row Seats for Lunar Eclipse LONDON (Reuters) - Britons had front row seats on Tuesday night for a three-hour show billed as the most colorful lunar eclipse for a decade. Beginning at around 1:40 p.m. EST, the earth's shadow slowly moved over the surface of the moon until finally eclipsing it at about 2:50 EST. Totality -- when the moon is completely covered by the earth's shadow -- saw the moon turn orange as the light from the sun was bent and filtered by the earth's atmosphere. Astronomers said the eclipse was particularly spectacular because it is almost a decade since the last big volcanic eruption -- that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. The debris thrown up by volcanic eruptions reduces the amount of light transmitted from the sun to the moon during a lunar eclipse. Tuesday's show was visible from all parts of Britain, as well as Europe, Africa and Asia. The only restricting factor for some was the weather, with some areas covered by cloud. The last total eclipse of the moon visible from Britain, in January 2000, was obscured by cloud across much of the country. The moon "turning to blood" was once seen as a sign that disaster would strike or that the gods were angry. In some places it still fills people with fear. An estimated 1,500 white witches are planning to gather in Britain, Sweden, Iceland, France, Canada and Austria during the eclipse to ward off any doom it may bring, the BBC reported.

NEWSALERT: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 @ 0530 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now CHINESE CAPSULE LAUNCHED ON SECOND UNMANNED TEST ------------------------------------------------ China took another step towards manned space travel Tuesday by launching its second prototype capsule on a demonstration flight. The unmanned Shenzhou 2 spacecraft, with several animals aboard, was successfully launched into the planned orbit around Earth by a Long March rocket on a several-day excursion. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/09china/ BIZARRE NEW PLANETS PUZZLE ASTRONOMERS -------------------------------------- Astronomers Tuesday announced the discovery of a pair of new and highly unusual planetary systems that challenge their views on the structure of solar systems and even the definition of a planet. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/10newplanets/ ENGINE REPLACEMENT DELAYS SEA LAUNCH TO FEB. 28 ----------------------------------------------- Sea Launch officials Tuesday decided the first stage engine on the Zenit 3SL rocket needs to be replaced because its pre-ignition sequence was started during Monday's aborted countdown. The job will require the command ship and launching platform return to port, delaying the mission until February 28. http://spaceflightnow.com/sealaunch/xm1/status.html 'PIPELINE' FUNNELS MATTER BETWEEN COLLIDING GALAXIES ---------------------------------------------------- This visible-light picture, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveals an intergalactic "pipeline" of material flowing between two battered galaxies that bumped into each other about 100 million years ago. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/09pipeline/ WINDS POSTPONE ARIANE 4 ROCKET LAUNCH YET AGAIN ----------------------------------------------- Continued unacceptable winds above the jungle launch site in Kourou, French Guiana forced Arianespace to forego making an attempt Tuesday night to fly the Ariane 4 rocket with the Eurasiasat 1 satellite. Launch has been reset for tonight and we will have live coverage! http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html OVER 150 RAPIDLY MOVING STARS FOUND IN MILKY WAY ------------------------------------------------ Astronomers have discovered 154 rapidly moving stars towards the center of our galaxy and our brightest neighboring galaxy. The results are of special interest because this is the first time scientists have been able to discover such objects in front of the millions of stars seen at the Galactic center and the Large Magellanic Cloud. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/10stars150/ BOEING BEGINS BUILDING NAVY COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE ---------------------------------------------------- Boeing has received the final go-ahead to manufacture an eleventh satellite for the U.S. Navy's UHF Follow-On communications satellite constellation, keeping the network working well into this decade to relay spy satellite photos, intelligence reports and strike orders to U.S. troops around the world. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/10uhf11/

Moon Hoax Spurs Crusade Against Bad Astronomy SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The myth about equinox eggs got him started, misinformation about meteors bugged him, but when he learned that some people think the Apollo Moon landings never happened, Philip Plait knew the time had come for his crusade against bad astronomy. So what began as a frustrated astronomy graduate student's online fuming has evolved into a newspaper column, a book contract and a Web site that gets an average of 15,000 hits a week: http:/www.badastronomy.com. No one is spared on the site: Plait, who holds a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Virginia and worked with the Hubble Space Telescope, takes aim at movies, television, the news media and the Internet when they trample on what he considers to be the obvious truths about space science. Take, for example, the notion that humans never walked on the Moon, despite copious evidence to the contrary. "People believe in the weirdest stuff, but they don't believe the most flaming obvious thing that's right in front of their face and I get e-mail about this," Plait said in an interview at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego. He blames much of it on the movie "Capricorn One," a science fiction offering in which a planned human mission to Mars is faked. "It's a good flick, but it legitimized a lot of these people who claimed we never went to the Moon," Plait said. "There weren't that many people, but with the Web, you can spread disinformation instantly. People are just willing to grab onto this stuff." WHERE ARE THE STARS IN MOON PHOTOS? One common argument used by the anti-Apollo folks is that in photographs of astronauts on the lunar surface, no stars can be seen in the dark sky, therefore the pictures must have been taken on Earth somewhere. Plait literally gagged as he recounted this, and countered with what to him was the obvious fact: there are no stars in the pictures from the moon because the Moon itself is being blasted with sunlight and is enormously bright, so bright that people on Earth can sometimes read by the light of the full Moon. "When they're taking a picture of this brightly lit astronaut on a brightly lit landscape, it's just like taking a picture in daytime here on the earth," he said. "No stars have a prayer of getting through that." Rather that debunking this idea on his Web site, Plait has a section referring visitors to other sites of "debunkers" and "conspiracy theories." But he plans a chapter in an upcoming book to be called "Bad Astronomy" on this question. There will also be a chapter on those who calculate the birth of the universe using the Bible, estimating its age in the thousands of years, instead of the billions of years that astronomers have long maintained. "Astronomy is one of the most accessible sciences," he said. "Everybody wonders about it and it does tap into the fundamental questions of humanity -- why are we here, what's our place in the universe, does the universe have an end, how did it start -- these aren't little questions, whole religions, trillion-dollar-a-year industries are based on these questions. "But it means that there's an open door into people's heads. If you can use that pathway to get to people, it's a good way to do it, for ill or for good," Plait said. Beginning in his student days in 1993 and 1994 with a personal Web site as his platform, Plait expressed irritation at a commonly held belief: that eggs can only be stood on end at the exact moment of vernal equinox. That, said Plait, is just plain nonsense. And he said so on his site, eventually featuring a picture of a gaggle of eggs at attention, taken on Oct. 25 -- as he said, about as far from the vernal equinox as possible. He did not hit on the idea of creating a Web site about bad astronomy until 1998, several months before a Leonid meteor shower. It turned out to be good timing: there was plenty of media grist for his mill in that event. Plait has not quit his day job: he currently works in California on public education programs for the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope. He also writes a column for the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

NEWSALERT: Sunday, January 7, 2001 @ 1728 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now SPACE SHUTTLES THAT REPAIR TECHNICAL GLITCHES ON THE FLY -------------------------------------------------------- Ever stop and think about the millions of dollars spent on fancy space equipment that breaks down? If you are millions of miles away orbiting the Earth, there's no repairman available to fix the problem. The answer: machines that are smart enough to learn from experience, detect problems and fix themselves. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/07fixitshuttle/ RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL SIGNS OFF ON MIR DEORBITING ------------------------------------------------------- Space station Mir's destruction upon burning up during re-entry seems even more certain with the announcement by a Russian Space Agency spokesperson that the Russian Prime Minister has signed an order mandating the deorbiting late next month. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/07mirok/ AUSTRALIAN SALT LAKE HELPS TEST NASA 'SKY EYE' ---------------------------------------------- A team of scientists has just spent a week in a huge barren salt lake in Australia's interior helping to test a new NASA satellite -- the Earth Observing 1 technology demonstrator. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/07eo1test/

NEWSALERT: Thursday, January 11, 2001 @ 0654 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now CHANDRA LINKS PULSAR TO SUPERNOVA OF 386 AD ------------------------------------------- New evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggests that a known pulsar is the present-day counterpart to a supernova that exploded in 386 AD, a stellar explosion witnessed by Chinese astronomers. If confirmed, this will be only the second known pulsar to be clearly associated with a historic event. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/11chandra/ EXTREME WARP FOUND IN ANDROMEDA'S STELLAR DISK ---------------------------------------------- Astronomers have obtained new evidence of an extreme warp in the stellar disk of the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest galactic neighbor. Possible causes of the warp include interactions between Andromeda and its smaller satellite galaxies. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/11warpdisk/ ARIANESPACE BEGINS 2001 WITH LAUNCH FOR TURKEY ---------------------------------------------- A telecommunications satellite that will bridge 150 million Turkish-speaking people of Europe and Asia was launched into orbit Wednesday by an Arianespace Ariane 4 rocket, marking the European booster's 60th straight success. http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/ http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v137/status.html ARIANESPACE POSTS $185 MILLION LOSS FOR 2000 -------------------------------------------- Arianespace reports it lost money last year, the first time the European launch services firm's annual earnings have wound up in the red during its 20-year history. But officials say they are optimistic that mark will not be repeated in 2001 with plans to reduce operating costs. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0101/11ariane2000/ AIR FORCE DELAYS LAUNCH OF WEATHER SATELLITE FOR REPAIRS -------------------------------------------------------- Next week's launch of a U.S. military weather satellite aboard a Titan 2 rocket from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base has been pushed back one day after technicians accidentally damaged a sun shield on the craft during pre-flight cleaning. http://spaceflightnow.com/titan/g9/ DATE SET FOR NEXT SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH -------------------------------------- NASA has established January 19 as the official launch date for space shuttle Atlantis' upcoming mission to deliver the $1.38 billion U.S. Destiny laboratory research module to the international space station. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/status.html

Space-Station Crew Awaits Next Shuttle Mission CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station were busy preparing on Friday for the arrival later this month of a U.S. space shuttle carrying the station's newest element -- a U.S. laboratory named Destiny. The crew of American William Shepherd, the station commander, and Russians Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov, passed their 73rd day in space on Friday. NASA and the Russian Space Agency, senior partners in the $60 billion orbital construction project, said they plan to give the station crew more time to relax and prepare for the arrival of shuttle Atlantis than they had in December, when shuttle Endeavour's crew found them exhausted and sleep deprived. Atlantis is scheduled to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 19 with the $1.4 billion Destiny module in its payload bay. The weeks leading up to Endeavour's visit had been a mad scramble to bring life-support, communications and computers to life aboard the Russian Service Module after the trio docked their Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the station in November. That work meant the astronauts had to sacrifice sleep leading up to the shuttle's arrival, and left Shepherd complaining about "trying to fit 30 hours into 16-hour days." "We started the process of preparing the crew before Christmas" for Atlantis' arrival, Jeff Hanley, the U.S. space agency's lead flight director for the station, said at a NASA regular space station briefing held on Friday. But there was still plenty of work left for the astronauts, who will live aboard the station about 120 days before being replaced by the Expedition Two team of one Russian commander and two Americans. Like anyone expecting house guests, there are numerous repairs and plenty of cleaning up to do. This past week the crew fixed an air conditioner, replaced some electronics in the on-board power system and tested the Russian space suits that would be used for space walks. Radios on the space suits proved balky and Russian ground controllers are studying the problem, Hanley said. A more immediate problem is one of four latches that will be needed to secure the Destiny to an existing space-station module. While testing the latches earlier, NASA found that one of them would not close due to an obstruction from some ductwork. "These are latches that actually reach out and grab the incoming module, in this case the lab," Hanley said. NASA plans to have the astronauts enter that part of the station, which currently is closed off by a hatch, to work on the latch this week. Otherwise, the astronauts top job is to prepare the station for provisions and equipment that Atlantis will carry into orbit. "The main theme of next week is going to be packing, packing, packing," Hanley said. The space station is a joint project of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada. It is scheduled for completion in 2006 and will have as much pressurized space as a 747 jumbo jet.