The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – recoveries, Rosetta launch & ORSA for Windows
  Part 2 – dark skies & more about that...
• Risk monitoring

Cover: Arianespace Flight 158 with the Rosetta spacecraft riding an Ariane 5 launcher took off this morning at 0717:44 UTC (2:17:44am EST) and later was reported to have successfully completed a second burn and separation on a path departing Earth's gravity, headed on a long journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (see the webcast and Spaceflight Now real-time report). Main and inset images at left courtesy of ESA from Arianespace TV. An Arianespace Mission Update yesterday told about the return of the Rosetta Ariane 5 to the launch zone following insulation inspection and repair. See more news links below.

Great Shefford Observatory

Recoveries:  MPEC 2004-E11 today announces the recovery of PHO 2000 EV70, which A/CC reported yesterday had been found by FMO Project online volunteer Peter Lake (of Melbourne, Australia). The MPEC shows that Miwa Block was the astronomer running the Spacewatch 0.9m telescope, and that Great Shefford Observatory in England made the confirmation early today (image).

Also today, MPEC 2004-E12 reports yesterday's recovery of kilometer-size NEO 1990 SA by the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) in Arizona, confirmed this morning by Great Shefford and by Desert Moon Observatory in New Mexico.

1990 SA was first found from Siding Spring Observatory by Rob McNaught on UK Schmidt telescope plates from 16 September 1990 and confirmed by him with the Uppsala Schmidt telescope on the 17th (see IAUCs 5093 and 5095).

more news briefs >>

Rosetta launch:  For more about the Rosetta comet mission launch, see Arianespace, EADS, and ESA news releases and a Reuters report. Today's Rosetta Journal entry reports spacecraft separation at 0933 UT, the ESA Space Operations Centre (ESOC) took control at 0937, and, at 1330 (8:30am EST), "The solar panels have now been successfully deployed."

more Rosetta news >>

ORSA for Windows Pasquale Tricarico announces that his free ORSA (Orbit Reconstruction, Simulation and Analysis) software for Linux, and also compilable on Mac OS X, is now available in its first version for Windows.

ORSA screen capture (scaled down) showing its Earth-Moon system visualization interface.

<< Rosetta launch continued from part 1

The European Southern Observatory posted a news release today with pictures of Rosetta's destination, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, from February 26th.

The NASA Deep Impact comet mission home page today posted a brief "Congratulations to the Rosetta Mission!" message. For more about the Rosetta launch, see the "cover" and details above.

Dark skies:  The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) will hold its 16th annual meeting 10-13 March in Tucson, Arizona, as told about in a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics news release posted yesterday at EurekAlert.

Continuing a news thread about light pollution affecting George Observatory in Texas, the Fort Bend/Southwest Sun has an article today with God and asteroids used as supporting arguments:

“ Dr. William Dillon of Missouri City quoted the scriptures and said the night sky represented the glory of God. He also pointed out the benefits of the observatory which provided critical data for radars and helped detect asteroids. ”

Risk monitoring 2 March

Of objects with impact solutions, the Tuesday Daily Orbit Update MPEC reports observation of 2004 DV24 Sunday morning, within the existing observing arc, by Tenagra II Observatory in Arizona.

Update #1:  NEODyS today very slightly lowered its overall risk estimate for 2004 DV24 within the 2080 time horizon.

Update #2:  JPL has lowered its overall risk ratings for 2004 DV24 within a hundred-year time horizon, and has lowered this object's Torino Scale rating back to zero ("no likely consequences").