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

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – comet news + bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring – JPL has posted 2004 QA22

Cover: Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) was announced today in MPEC 2004-Q58, after posting to the MPC NEO Confirmation Page. The first calculation has perihelion at 1.286 AU on 27 January between Earth and Mars. The IAU Astronomical Headlines page noted yesterday that this is the “tenth visual comet discovery by Don E. Machholz, Jr.” At left is an enlarged composite of two 30-sec. exposures, from Peter Birtwhistle at Great Shefford Observatory in England this morning, one of six observatories to provide confirming astrometry.

Comet news:  On his C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) page, Peter Birtwhistle notes that the image of that comet on today's cover “was taken 16 hours after discovery, in morning nautical twilight, with the comet just 10° above the horizon.” See above for more about that, and also, for more comet pictures and information, see his newly added C/2004 Q1 (Tucker) and C/2004 P1 (NEAT) pages.

Bits & pieces:  Today the Boston Herald and Wired News got their 2004 FU14 stories straight about the March close flyby, while other news sites have reproduced the Scripps Howard News Service story from the Albuquerque Tribune Thursday that says the event was last week.

The University of Bologna Tunguska Home Page has had a facelift and some updating. See for instance, an announcement (MS-Word DOC file) of an International Council for Science Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society workshop 27 November to 2 December at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Risk monitoring 28 August

JPL posted 2004 QA22 overnight with three low-rated impact solutions, all beyond the NEODyS 2080 time horizon. This small object was announced early on the 28th UT in MPEC 2004-Q55 as discovered by LINEAR in New Mexico on the morning of the 25th and caught again the next morning, and confirmed finally last night by Great Shefford Observatory in England and Gnosca Observatory in Switzerland. It was followed at Great Shefford over a three-hour period.

The Saturday Daily Orbit Update MPEC is long on updated orbits but carries no observations, and, at last check, the risk monitors have not updated any risk assessments today.