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

Today's issue status: done, updated 2x

• Central U.S. event
• News briefs – all-sky news + bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring

Cover: An artistic impression shows the MUSES-C Hayabusa spacecraft approaching 25143 Itokawa (1998 SF36) next June. This half-kilometer-long near-Earth asteroid was the subject of radar observation from Goldstone and Arecibo planned during 17-22 June. It is reported in yesterday's Daily Orbit Update MPEC, and on the radar observations page as observed only June 17th with the 70m antenna at Goldstone in southern California. The illustration, courtesy of JAXA, may have been created before a shape model was available from radar observing during a 23-day period in early 2001 (see the A/CC June 26th cover).

One or more fireballs about 9:20pm CDT Wednesday (0220 UTC 8 July) have been reported from the south-central U.S. Details so far are sketchy.

• Tyler, Texas KLTV-TV 8 July, “East Texans React To Nighttime Fireball” with newscast video
• Fort Smith, Arkansas KHBS/KHOG-TV 8 July, “Astronomers Say ‘Fireball’ Was Large Meteor” (with spectacular “video taken by a Texas law enforcement official”)
• Jacksonville, Florida WJXX/WTLV-TV 8 July, “Meteor Over Texas Caught on Tape” (same video)

• Tyler, Texas Morning Telegraph 8 July, “Meteor Streaks Across East Texas Skies”

  “ At about 9 p.m., when callers started flooding law enforcement agencies with reports of a fireball in the sky, [a snake got into] a power substation, met an untimely death and plunged areas around Brownsboro and Chandler into darkness for about an hour. ”

• Waco, Texas KWTX-TV 8 July, “Meteor Streaks Across Central Texas Sky”

  “ The meteor was seen going from the southeast to the northwest. ”

• Shreveport, Louisiana KTBS-TV 8 July, “Fire in the sky”

  “ Paul King [was photographing] a distant thunderstorm when he caught the meteor on camera. A camera in a Dallas police car also recorded the fireball. ”

• Paris, Texas News 8 July, “Meteor shower blazes over Paris”

  “ "The thing was seen from Memphis through eastern Oklahoma as far north as Tulsa and down to the Houston air route center," said John Clabes [FAA spokesman]. ”

• Arkansas City Traveler 8 July, “Fire in the sky seen in county, likely space junk” (according to Dr. Jason Ferguson, astronomer at Wichita State Univ.)
• Monroe, Louisiana News-Star 8 July, “Night sky comes alive with ‘huge greenish light’”
• Tyler, Texas Morning Telegraph 7 July, “Citizens Report Fire in the Sky”

  “ [Described] as a burning object moving southward. ”

• Tyler, Texas KLTV-TV 7 July, “Thousands Witness Object Falling From The Sky”
• Waco, Texas KWTX-TV 7-8 July, “Possible Meteor Spotted In Central Texas Sky ”
• Lufkin, Texas KTRE-TV 7-8 July, “Reports of Object ‘Falling from the Sky’”

All-sky news:  Cloudbait Observatory in central Colorado has a report of a bright meteor caught by its all-sky camera at 1:43am yesterday (0743 UTC 7 July).

Jim Gamble in El Paso, Texas reports two bright meteors overnight with his all all-sky camera: a V=-9.7 at 11:12pm MDT (0512 UTC 8 July) east of zenith flying due north, and a V=-9.3 west-southwest of zenith flying WSW at 12:03am MDT (0603 UTC 8 July).

Bits & pieces:  Preparations continue for defending Mt. Graham International Observatory from approaching wildfires (see news thread, “Bits & pieces”), but the situation is reported by AP and Reuters today to be improved.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has a large set of news materials today about “Spacecraft Fleet Tracks Blast Wave Through Solar System.” Regarding last Fall's record-breaking coronal mass ejections that caused lower-latitude aurora on Earth, it reports a prediction “that within 10 months the boundary

separating our solar system from interstellar space will be pushed as much as 400 million miles farther out as a result of the blast wave.” Space.com has a report today.

NASA Ames Research Center has a news release from yesterday telling that “The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) has awarded its 2004 Carl Sagan Medal to NASA scientist Dr. David Morrison [who] is the senior scientist for the NASA Astrobiology Institute, . . . co-author of one of the first textbooks in planetary science, [and] an expert on solar system small bodies.” It notes that “He is responsible for creating NEO News, an e-mail newsletter with about 800 subscribers.”

Risk monitoring 8 July

The Thursday Daily Orbit Update MPEC has observation of 2004 MP7 from early yesterday and the day before from Wykrota Observatory in Brazil, and yesterday from Goodricke-Pigott Observatory in Arizona and Reedy Creek Observatory in Queensland, Australia. Today JPL very slightly raised its risk assessment for this object, which is estimated at roughly 150 meters/yards wide.