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June
2005
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29 June 2005 - Wednesday
NEO education: The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has posted a collection of material entitled, "Impact! Tracking Near Earth Asteroids." Besides articles to read, there is a 7.5-minute movie for those who have the bandwidth and who allow cookies and Flash on their machines. It reportedly shows the Minor Planet Center in action and also has footage of LINEAR and Meteor Crater.
FMOP news: Marco Langbroek reports that FMO Project volunteer Stan Pope discovered 2005 ME5 while reviewing images online from the Spacewatch 0.9m telescope in Arizona. The discovery, which was announced yesterday in MPEC 2005-M59, came early Monday. Spacewatch's 1.8m telescope was put on it around two hours later, and caught it again about 24 hours after first sighting to confirm the discovery. This object, which from its brightness is very roughly estimated at 30 meters/yards wide, will pass Earth at 15.3 lunar distances next Tuesday.
2005 ME5 is Pope's second discovery. See a news thread about his first, the Earth-buzzing 2004 YD5.
Meteor news: Jim Gamble has posted to his latest events page two bright meteors caught over El Paso, Texas by his all-sky camera on Monday at 4:03am and 11:44pm MDT. He notes that the flight of the 4:03am meteor, "including the terminal flash, was obscured by clouds."
Risk monitoring: The Daily Orbit Update (DOU) MPECs for Monday through today reported no observations of objects with impact solutions, and, of course, just one has been in view recently. The only slim news to report in risk monitoring since Sunday (see below) is that JPL on Monday reposted its latest 2004 MN4 risk assessment with its new numbering, 99942 2004 MN4. This assessment, which is from June 15th, doesn't incorporate observations published in three DOUs since June 9th.
June
2005
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26 June 2005 - Sunday
Meteor news: Jim Gamble has posted to his Latest Event page a composite flight image and QuickTime movie of a bright meteor picked up by his all-sky camera over El Paso, Texas at 4:54am MDT Thursday.
Risk monitoring: Today's Daily Orbit Update MPEC carried the first observation of 2005 JP81 since its May 13th discovery announcement. A single position is reported from late on June 2nd from the Nordic Near-Earth-Object Network using the 2.5m Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma. Only JPL had this object listed, and today removed its ten impact solutions, the earliest of which had been just over five years from now.
June
2005
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24 June 2005 - Friday
Numbers & names: The Minor Planet Center today updated its minor planet Discovery Circumstances and comet numbers pages. There were 41 new minor planet numberings, the first since February (report) and now topping out at 99947. And one comet was numbered, 167P/CINEOS, formerly known as P/2004 PY42 (see recent news).
The most prominent of the newly numbered minor planets is 99942 2004 MN4, which becomes the only numbered asteroid to have Earth-impact solutions. This may be a modern record for being assigned a number with the least amount of observing time, just five days past one year. Thanks to radar, along with extensive optical observation, 99942 does have a very well determined orbit, although only until 2029 when a very close Earth passage will put it on a new, difficult-to-predict path.
The only new naming today was 5171 Augustesen (1987 SQ3), and the name "Augustesen" was simultaneously removed from 6002 1988 RO, which had had it for only a month. Both objects were discovered by Poul Jensen at Brorfelde Observatory in Denmark. Finally, 11264 Claudiomaccone was renamed from Claudimaccone.
The most recent previous namings were on May 24th, and there is something to add to that report: Most namings are for Main Belt asteroids and the occasional distant object. Among near-Earth asteroids, it is mostly the largest and longest known that have names, so it is interesting to find in the last batch of namings the potentially hazardous asteroid 85585 Mjolnir (1998 FG2). This object was the discovery that won the second of two Benson Prizes for amateur astronomer Roy Tucker, who incidentally also played a key role in the 2004 MN4 discovery as part of a professional astronomy team.
Update: Reinder Bouma points out that there are actually three newly-numbered comets. The other two are 165P/LINEAR (2000 B4) and 166P/NEAT (2001 T4).
June
2005
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23 June 2005 - Thursday
 The loneliness of tiny 2005 MA, caught by Erich Meyer as it approached the Earth-Moon system Monday night. Field 11'x15', north up. (The background streaks are stars.) |
Small object: With currently the shortest nights of the northern year as well as a full Moon, it is hard enough to discover and track big objects, such as newly discovered mile-size PHA 2005 MC (see below). So it is nice work that the Mt. Lemmon Survey in Arizona managed to find tiny 2005 MA early on June 16th (MPEC 2005-M09) before it passed Earth at 1.9 lunar distances on the 21st. This was the closest known flyby since March 18th, and the third closest so far this year. Erich Meyer caught it late on the 20th UT with the 0.6m telescope at Linz Observatory in Austria, as seen in the image here. It is a single 60-second exposure while the object was at magnitude 17 moving at 120"/min. From its absolute magnitude, which JPL puts at H=26.9, this object is estimated to be about 15 meters/yards wide.
It should be noted that 2005 MC was about 35 times further away than 2005 MA at discovery, and 1.8 magnitudes dimmer. Credit for the 2005 MA discovery goes to University of Arizona Astronomy Camp leader, Don McCarthy, and Eric Christensen was at the other Catalina Sky Survey telescope down the mountain for the 2005 MC discovery just over two hours later (he also nabbed another comet this week, see next news item).
Comet news: MPEC 2005-M33 on June 20th announced the discovery of C/2005 M1 (Christensen) and shows the first observations by Eric Christensen at the Mt. Lemmon Survey on June 17th. It is a distant object, with a preliminary calculation that is coming away from perihelion last January 24th at 2.94607 AU out past Mars, traveling at low inclination (i=8.7°).
Risk monitoring: Today's Daily Orbit Update (DOU) MPEC is the first since Saturday to report observation of an object with impact solutions. McCarthy Observatory in Connecticut caught 2005 MC two mornings ago, and today NEODyS and JPL removed all of their impact solutions for this mile-size object. (NEODyS posted 2005 MC on Sunday, after its discovery was announced Saturday.)