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

Today's issue status: done, updated

• Meteor news – NSW event(s?), New Zealand rocks & other news
• News briefs – discovery news + bits & pieces
  panel 2 – Rosetta news
• Risk monitoring

Cover: Comet C/2004 F4 (Bradfield) observed June 6th by Pepe Manteca at Begues Observatory in Spain. North is up, east is left, and the comet's motion is northward.

NSW event(s?):  The Illawarra Mercury in Australia reports today about people calling a local radio talk show to tell about witnessing the Wednesday night event (see news thread). Some also “reported seeing a similar phenomenon on Tuesday night.”

New Zealand rocks:  The Wairarapa News tells today that it has been informed by Ken Newton of the International Meteorite Collectors Association (IMCA) that, based on the photo the paper published Wednesday, the object shown is a pyrite nodule rather than a meteorite. Although not officially investigated like a claim reported yesterday, this would be the second to be dismissed of three meteorite claims reported recently in New Zealand news media.

And now there is another claim, reported in a cautiously qualified article at Hawkes Bay Today dated tomorrow, “Hastings doorstop may have flashed across sky.” It was found “at Pourere in 1907.” A “rain or shower of lights” was seen and “The next morning [the finder] went down to the beach at low tide, walked

the full length of the beach and found it just under the water.” Astronomer Brian Carter, after seeing a photo, is quoted as saying, “I’ve never seen a meteorite looking like that before.”

Other news:  SpaceWeather.com has a small AVI from Ed Majden's all-sky video of the Washington fireball (see news), and reports from Rob Matson that “A small team is on the ground now looking for meteorites” based on his flight path analysis.

Sky & Telescope has an item telling about a possible resurgence of the June Bootids sometime during 22-27 June and their relationship to comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke. Space.com also has a report today, and see details by Jeremie Vaubaillon and the Fuchu Astronomical Society (FAS), and in the June North American Meteor Network NAMN Notes.

The Leavenworth, Kansas Times tells today about a presentation on meteorites and “meteor-wrongs.” And the Singapore Straits Times has an article from yesterday about a Singapore Science Centre (SSC) meteorite display from the collections of hunters Cornelis Baaijens and Marvin Killgore.

Discovery news:  Spacewatch FMO Project online volunteer Lawrence Garrett of Vermont found an object yesterday, temporarily designated SW40E3 [2004 MO1], while reviewing images from the Spacewatch 0.9m telescope in Arizona, and it was added to the MPC NEO Confirmation Page (NEOCP) at June 17.87 UT. It is described as “moving at 11.9 deg/day, and relatively faint,” with a “poor” chance of confirmation.

MPEC 2004-M09 yesterday announced the discovery of comet C/2004 L2 (LINEAR), and shows LINEAR observations on 11, 14, and 15 June, and confirmation from six other observing facilities yesterday morning. It is preliminarily calculated to come to perihelion at 3.804 AU (more than twice the distance from the Sun to Mars) on 16 November 2005 on a highly inclined (i=63.0°) parabolic path.

MPEC 2004-M06 yesterday announced 2004 LH18, a discovery made by Miwa Block Monday morning with the Spacewatch 0.9m telescope in Arizona. A/CC asked Pasquale Tricarico about

the stability of this object's path between Mars and Jupiter: “The MOID with Mars is 0.177 AU now, and will evolve to 0.156 AU after a ‘missed’ close approach with Jupiter between the years 2012-2015 (relative Jupiter-asteroid distance never smaller than 2.35 AU in this period). The MOID with Jupiter is pretty stable — 0.657 AU now, evolving to 0.675 AU in 2015. Checking a longer period would not be very meaningful, as the orbit is not well defined yet.”

Bits & pieces:  In addition to Stardust news from yesterday, there is a narrative by mission principal investigator Don Brownlee.

Sky & Telescope tells today that “At June’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Denver, Colorado, members of the AAS’s Working Group for Professional-Amateur Collaboration announced the inauguration of an online ‘registry’ service” for pairing professional astronomers with sophisticated amateurs for special projects. Janet Stevens, mentioned in the article, has worked with others on starting this project since 1998.

more bits & pieces >>

<< bits & pieces continued from panel 1

Space.com has an article from yesterday about the proposed New Horizons II mission to the Uranus system and Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. It quotes Alan Stern as saying that a principal destination would be 47171 1999 TC36, “a large KBO circled by a smaller satellite. ‘It’s like a little compact miniature of the Pluto-Charon system.’”

The Cornell Chronicle has an article from yesterday, telling that “NASA astronaut Ed Lu ’84 returned to his alma mater last week to proselytize on behalf of nudging asteroids.”

Rosetta news:  An ESA June 16th news item tells that the Rosetta lander’s Ptolemy instrument will examine “the mix of isotopes found in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko [to learn] whether comet water is similar to that found in Earth’s oceans. Recent results from the ground-based observation of another comet, called LINEAR, suggested that they probably are the same.”

Another ESA news item today shows “Rosetta's self-portrait in space,” made with the lander's Comet Nucleus Infrared and Visible Analyser (CIVA) camera system “as part of its testing in May 2004.” (See here for how the lander is stored on the Rosetta spacecraft.)

Risk monitoring 18 June

The Friday Daily Orbit Update MPEC has observation of 2004 MC and 2004 LV3 from yesterday morning from LINEAR in New Mexico. The ten positions reported for small asteroid 2004 MC were from within the existing observation arc, and today JPL made a very slight adjustment to its risk assessment. And NEODyS and JPL today both slightly lowered their overall risk ratings for 2004 LV3.