Ninety-nine years ago this morning something exploded high in the daylit sky over the Tunguska region of Siberia, flattening a forest area the size of a large city. Although no primary impact feature has been identified, the latest news (links reported Saturday through yesterday) has been that nearby Lake Cheko may be a possible secondary crater. This rendering of a 3D terrain model, viewed from the south, has the lake's water level 40 meters below actual to show the underlying shape. Credit: Tunguska Home Page at the University of Bologna.
Contents on 30 June '07
- Minor-Object News -- two items
- Minor-Object Science -- one paper
- IAU Minor Planet Center
- NEOCP Activity
- New MPECs -- one MPEC
- Observers -- one facility
- Impact Risk Monitoring -- nothing to report
- Chronology
WELCOME to A/CC's prototype daily news publication designed to be the viewing end of a planned autonomous 24-hour news service. The new tools and this publication format are working well enough now to share with readers. It is expected that this approach will require less time to maintain than our previous news and small asteroid pages, which were retired on May 14th. There's still more development ahead and there probably will be some glitches along the way, but this is what's needed to keep up with the increasing pace of minor-object news. The CRT page will be maintained separately for a little while longer, until all of this is working smoothly. And the CRT and small-asteroid ephemerides will be kept going.
Minor-Object News on 30 June '07
- "Professor steps down after 42 years," The Purdue Exponent 29 June - Quote: "Michael Lipschutz, a professor of inorganic and cosmochemistry who retires Saturday [says he's] tired of the continual research process. He's tired of writing proposals for grants. He's tired of rejection by people who he feels are underqualified to pass judgments. 'What I enjoyed was doing the work and seeing it in print,' Lipschutz said. 'Everything else was a pain.'"
- "Project to give Agri crater a new look," Today's Zaman 30 June - Quote: "The crater, formed by a meteor that fell in 1892, 35 kilometers east of Dogubayazit and two kilometers southeast of the Gurbulak border crossing point, had an original depth of 60 meters." - Note: This crater, about which there seems to be little on the Web, is described as 55 meters wide and located 2 km. from the border with Iran and near Mt. Ararat, known in Turkey as Mt. Agri.
Minor-Object Science on 30 June '07
- "A Case Study of Low-Mass Star Formation" by Swift, J. with Wm. J. Welch, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org June 2007 - Quote: "New observations and published data spanning from the centimeter wave band to the near infrared reveal the high and low density molecular gas, dust, and pre-main sequence stars in L1551... Thirty-five pre-main sequence stars with masses from ~0.1 to 1.5 [Solar masses] are selected to be members of the L1551 association [and] there is clear evidence that another star or stellar system will form... This study reveals that stellar feedback is a significant factor in the evolution of the L1551 cloud."
NEOCP Activity on 30 June '07
The MPC's NEO Confirmation Page is currently empty
The NEOCP is currently empty and hasn't been noted by Major News as active yet today (last checked at 2358 UTC).
New MPECs on 30 June '07
Minor Planet Electronic Circulars
As of last check at 2358 UTC, there has been one MPEC issued today from the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
<< DOU on 30 June '07 >> MPEC 2007-M57 - "06:07 UT" - Daily Orbit Update
- 85275 85275 1994 LY from Bolzaneto Obs. (June 28.85-88p3)
Observers on 30 June '07
One observing facility participated in today's MPECs.
| A88 | Bolzaneto Obs. in Italy, 1 in MPEC 2007-M57 -- 85275 |
Impact Risk Monitoring on 30 June '07
At last check (NEODyS and JPL at 2357 UTC) there was no risk monitoring news to report yet today.
Chronology on 30 June '07
Times are UTC for when the items were noted by Major News.
| 1831 | Added MOS paper, "A Case Study of Low-Mass Star Formation" - see above Added link to news story, "Professor steps down after 42 years" Added link to news story, "Project to give Agri crater a new look" |
| 1341 | Grabbed MPEC 2007-M57 - Daily Orbit Update - see above |
Publisher information, privacy statement, and disclaimer.
This page is © Copyright 2007 Columbine, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
Any mentioned trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Various tabular formats and data used on this page are acknowledged as belonging to JPL, MPC, NEODyS, and/or others.
Do NOT copy, mirror, or embed this page, but you are welcome to link to it, and you may embed the RSS news feed. All information here is subject to very frequent change during the day of news compilation. Individuals may make copies for their own private, non-commercial use. Please report broken links or other problems with this page to <webmaster@hohmanntransfer.com> (HTML 4.01 validation).
Important updates to Major News About Minor Objects are flagged by RSS news feed (link)