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

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – tracking marathon & odd news
• Risk monitoring – NEODyS has pulled 2004 TN1

Cover: A composite showing small object 2002 VX91 (slightly trailed) crossing a field caught with NEAT's Haleakala telescope on 6 November 2002, positions that were found in the SkyMorph archive by Josep Julia Gomez and reported this past week. Motion was 14.96"/min. in PA 64.6°. He also reported positions found in three separate fields from two days earlier, when VX91 was moving at 30.65"/min. in PA 69.1°. LINEAR discovered 2002 VX91 on the 12th, and, after this was announced on the 14th, it was briefly listed with impact solutions. This archive work added 7.717 days to the 19.065-day 2002 observation arc for this H=24.12 object (it was also picked up in late 2003), and caused its MPC U uncertainty rating to go from 5 to 3. See also the weekly small objects report for more about 2002 VX91.

Tracking marathon:  The Daily Orbit Update MPECs of 14 and 15 October reported follow-up on 42 near-Earth asteroids observed from the evening of October 6th through the morning of the 9th (three night-long sessions) with the Whipple 1.2m telescope on Mt. Hopkins in southern Arizona, work that was coded to Tim Spahr. A/CC inquired and was told that this was under a NASA Near-Earth Objects Observations program grant received by Spahr, and all the object selection and observing was done by Kyle Smalley. Ten more objects were also observed that haven't yet had their positions measured.

Besides several asteroids that will be told about in the weekly small objects report, this work caught 29075 1950 DA [link|alt], which has a very well established orbit, but is the only asteroid to have a known Earth impact possibility (in the year 2880), so it needs watching and hadn't been reported observed since 5 January 2003. Other targets included many unnumbered asteroids that have been observed in multiple years since discovery but haven't been reported since last year or late 2002. And one, 1999 EE5, hadn't been reported since two days in December 2000 following its 47.359-day observation arc in early 1999.

Although Kyle Smalley has observed on site at Mt. Hopkins with Tim Spahr, this run was done entirely by remote control from the Minor Planet Center office in Cambridge, Massachussets (three hours ahead of Arizona time), where the usual work continued, such as more than MPECs issued by Smalley after the observation runs.

Odd news:  This story doesn't qualify as “space junk” fireball news or minor object sample return news, but it comes close. A large Chinese capsule, descending by parachute after re-entry, clobbered an apartment building in Sichuan province on Friday, as reported in wire stories from AP at CNN today and from AFP at Channel News Asia today, but go to China's own Xinhua news agency for the photo.

Risk monitoring 17 Oct.

The Sunday Daily Orbit Update MPEC (DOU) has observation of 2004 TN1 from last night from Great Shefford Observatory in England. Today NEODyS removed its last impact solution for this smallish object, while JPL strongly lowered its risk ratings for a single impact solution in 2013.

The DOU also has observation of 2004 TD18 from early yesterday from the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope in Arizona, and today JPL cut its impact solution count by two thirds and lowered its overall risk ratings for this object, which it now estimates to be on the order of 114 meters/yards wide.