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

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring – NEODyS has posted 2004 MX2 & pulled 2004 MS1 while JPL has removed 2004 MC

Cover: Small object 2004 LC observed on June 10th by Pepe Manteca at Begues Observatory in southern Spain. Asked about the wandering glowworm trails, he responded, “They are white pixels because it was very hot and I could not keep down the CCD temperature.” North is up and east is left.

Bits & pieces:  Astronomy.com has an article from yesterday about the Bootid meteor shower for which there are some predictions of an unusual brief burst either tomorrow morning or another morning this week. See more links (“Other news”).

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory has a news release from yesterday about discovery by the RCB Green Bank Telescope (GBT) of eight- and ten-atom molecules (in the biologically significant aldehyde group) in an interstellar cloud. “Comets form from interstellar clouds and incessantly bombard a newly formed planet early in its history [and thus] may be the delivery vehicles for organic molecules necessary for life to begin.”

There is a news release today about flight operations of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the 747-based 2.5m telescope “expected to begin scientific operations in 2005.”

Reuters has an item from yesterday with a statement from a NASA official that NASA might “consider offering $10 million to $30 million in prizes . . . for such landmarks as ‘the first soft landing on the moon, or for returning a piece of an asteroid to Earth’ . . . There was even discussion of offering ‘a couple hundred million dollars for the first private orbital flight.’” Burt Rutan, designer of the first private manned spacecraft to reach suborbital space, was quoted by CNN yesterday as saying, “We are heading to orbit sooner than you think. We do not intend to stay in low-earth orbit for decades. The next 25 years will be a wild ride.”

Risk monitoring 22 June

NEODyS today posted 2004 MX2. The Tuesday Daily Orbit Update MPEC (DOU) has no new observations of that object, but has plenty for 2004 MS1, enough to get its only impact solution removed by NEODyS today. It was reported from yesterday morning by Beaconsfield Observatory in England and LINEAR in New Mexico, and last night by KLENOT in the Czech Republic.

The DOU carries observations of 2004 MC from Reedy Creek Observatory in Queensland yesterday and KLENOT last night. Today JPL removed its only solution for this small object, for the year 2034. NEODyS also removed its 2034 solution, but at the same time posted two new low-rated solutions in 2035 and 2072.