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

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – comet & meteor news + cover story
  panel 2 – outer Solar System & mission news
• Risk monitoring

Cover: Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) from Ebre Observatory in Spain Friday evening, an image processed at A/CC from a FITS file provided by Jaime Nomen. See "Cover story" below for more info.

Comet news:  MPEC 2004-J34 yesterday shows that an unusual asteroidal object has been redesignated as comet C/2004 HV60 (Spacewatch), going from a very eccentric orbit calculation (e=0.94071 in the May 2nd DOU) to parabolic e=1.0, and putting perihelion at 3.105 AU last December 21st. See A/CC's report about this object's April 25th discovery.

Meteor news:  An article from The Australian at news.com.au today, "Meteoric rise in rock's value," tells more about the Binya meteorite story (see Saturday report), including that the former doorstop was found by Terry Myers and was seized to put on sale due to insolvency, and that “The federal Government has . . . banned its export.” The sale is announced in a government news release today (available as PDF or DOC file). Photos, info, and a May 6th news release (159Kb PDF) have been posted by the sales agent, Lex E. Simshauser Consulting.

Another two bright meteor Quicktime movies have been posted by Sandia National Lab, a brief event

From Ebre Observatory, C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) May 7th in a 60'x40' view, one-third size.

Cover story:  Ebre Observa-tory was founded by Jesuits in 1904 at Roquetes-Tortosa, Spain, and is known for its work in geophysics. But it was an old 16cm refractor there that began "my passion for astronomy," says Jaime Nomen, who was born in Tortosa. As part of the coming centennial celebration and promoting science to the public, the observatory obtained a modern 40cm reflector from which an early result is today's "cover" image.
      In the May 6th namings, the observatory was honored with 37391 Ebre (2001 XB), discovered by Jaime Nomen at Ametlla de Mar Observatory.

yesterday morning (414Kb) and one a bit more spectacular this morning (457Kb, links temporary).

more news briefs >>

<< continued from panel 1

Outer Solar System:  The May 2004 issue of Distant EKOs was posted today with many scientific references delving into topics such as the primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt binary population, "Initial Orbit Determination for Distant Objects," the Kepler mission and stellar occulations by EKB objects, and broadband observation of 55636 2002 TX that constrains its diameter as less than 1,110 km. Most of these are not easily available to the public, but some that can be found online include "Detection of a candidate inner Oort cloud planetoid" (417Kb PDF) by Michael Brown et al. about 2003 VB12 ("Sedna"), a "Prediction of a new planet or another Kuiper-type belt" at 87 AU by Griv and Gedalin, and a preliminary affirmative look by Alan Stern at "the feasibility of accreting 800-1000 kilometer-radius objects in distant orbits 75 and 500 AU [Sedna's q and a] from the Sun."

Mission news:  JAXA/ISAS MUSES-C "Hayabusa" mission news today reminds us that a gravity-assist Earth flyby happens this month, but doesn't give a date (May 18th?).

The Rosetta mission has a status update today, "First Scientific Activity." It says "Four remote sensing instruments . . . took measurements and images," and one of them, the OSIRIS imager, lost data "due to a suspected instrument software crash. The Reaction Control Subsystem was pressurized in preparation for an "upcoming deep-space manoeuvre," and adjustments continue to be made to deal with heating during Rosetta's "decreasing distance to the Sun."

IAUC 8315 of April 4th has been made public with news about BVRI photometry by M.D. Hicks et al. of Main Belt asteroid 2867 Steins, a Rosetta flyby target. It reports a "a double-peaked lightcurve" and says "D-type taxonomic classification" cannot be ruled out, but the colors "are more suggestive of an S-type asteroid."

Risk monitoring 10 May

The Monday Daily Orbit Update MPEC reports observation of 2004 HM with the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope in Arizona yesterday morning. Today JPL narrowed its risk assessment for this small object to one low-rated impact solution a hundred years from now.