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At 0552 UTC two years ago today (still July 3rd in the western U.S.), NASA's Deep Impact mission struck 9P/Tempel 1. The flyby spacecraft's high-res camera took this photo 67 seconds after the impactor spacecraft hit the comet's nucleus. The flyby spacecraft is still alive and well, and yesterday was given a new comet mission. See news below. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

Contents  on 4 July '07

• Minor-Object News -- seven items
• Minor-Object Science -- five papers
• IAU Minor Planet Center
  • NEOCP Activity -- two listings: 2 new
  • New MPECs -- one MPEC
  • Observers -- fourteen observing facilities
• Impact Risk Monitoring -- nothing to report
• Chronology

Resources:

• Consolidated Risk Tables - CRT page
• Ephemerides for risk-rated objects
• Ephemerides for small asteroids

Navigation tips: Use the << and >> arrows on the menus for each regular section (Observers, Risks, etc.) to move to the previous and next day's news for that section. Use the Index menu item to access specific days this year with a calendar interface. And use the all-up news archive to access news anytime since A/CC began in early 2002. To keep track of what's new each day, watch the Chronology section.

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Minor-Object News  on 4 July '07

• "1st Media Announcement for the European Planetary Science Congress 2007," EPSC at SpaceRef.com 3 July - Quote: "Approximately 500 astronomers and space scientists will gather for the second European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) [in] Potsdam, Germany from Monday, 20th August to Friday, 24th August 2007 ... organised by Europlanet, the European Planetology Network in association with the European Geosciences Union." - Note: A quick scan of the program assembled so far finds little about minor-object science, but the session on planetary Virtual Observatory tools and science does include presentations on "SSODNet: the solar system object database network project" (43Kb PDF abstract), and "Data mining of sky surveys for automatic identification of Solar System Objects" about getting "new astrometric observations of SSO in order to improve our knowledge of their orbits and, especially for Near Earth Objects (NEO)" (47Kb PDF abstract).
• "Key to Giant Space Sponge Revealed," Space.com 4 July - Quote: "[Dale] Cruickshank's team attributes the [Saturn] moon's dinginess to contamination by a dark, organic material that litters Hyperion's surface and is concentrated in several of its craters... Cruickshank notes that the same reddish gunk can also be found on other icy objects in the outer solar system, including other moons, Kuiper belt objects and comets."
• "NASA Gives Two Successful Spacecraft New Assignments," NASA 3 July - Quote: "[The] Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI) ... will involve a flyby of comet Boethin, which has never been explored. Boethin is a small, short period comet... [The] New Exploration of Tempel 1 (NExT) ... mission will reuse NASA's Stardust spacecraft to revisit comet Tempel 1. This investigation will provide the first look at the changes to a comet nucleus produced after its close approach to the sun. It will mark the first time a comet has ever been revisited. NExT also will extend the mapping of Tempel 1, making it the most mapped comet nucleus to date. This mapping will help address the major questions of comet nucleus 'geology' raised by images of areas where it appears material might have flowed like a liquid or powder."
  • "Deep Impact and Stardust Get New Assignments," Planetary Soc. 3 July
  • "NASA Recycles Old Spacecraft for New Missions," Space.com 3 July
  • "New jobs given to old NASA spacecraft," AP at CBC & many other news outlets 4 July - Quote: "NASA did not disclose the price tags of the followup projects, but the costs were expected to be significantly lower than the main missions. Deep Impact cost $333 million US, while Stardust was $212 million. The Deep Impact team proposed $40 million for the encore mission, but NASA only allotted $30 million, said principal investigator Michael A'Hearn"
• "Decision on Dawn spacecraft launch is postponed," San Gabriel Valley Tribune 4 July - Quote: "But although Dawn and its Delta II launch rocket now have a clean bill of health, said Marc Rayman, project systems engineer at JPL, summer thunderstorms are calling into question the feasibility of a July 7 departure for the asteroid-visiting craft."

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Minor-Object Science  on 4 July '07

• "The Nature of Stellar Winds in the Star-Disk Interaction" by Matt, Sean with Ralph E. Pudritz, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 4 July - Quote: "Stellar winds may be important for angular momentum transport from accreting T Tauri stars... For the high mass loss rates required to solve the angular momentum problem, we find that the radiative losses will be much greater than can be powered by the accretion process... We conclude that accretion powered stellar winds are still a promising scenario for solving the stellar angular momentum problem, but the winds must be cool (~1e4 K) and thus are not driven by thermal pressure."
• "Why are accreting T Tauri stars less luminous in X-rays than non-accretors?" by Gregory, S.G. with K. Wood & M. Jardine, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 4 July - Quote: "Accreting T Tauri stars are observed to be less luminous in X-rays than non-accretors, an effect that has been detected in various star forming regions. To explain this we have combined, for the first time, a radiative transfer code with an accretion model that considers magnetic fields [consisting] of compact magnetic regions close to the stellar surface, with extended field lines interacting with the disk."
• "Cold Disks: Spitzer Spectroscopy of Disks around Young Stars with Large Gaps" by Brown, J.M. with G.A. Blake, C.P. Dullemond & 9 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 4 July - Quote: "We have identified four circumstellar disks with a deficit of dust emission from their inner 15-50 AU. All four stars have F-G spectral type... Though rare, cold disks are likely in transition from an optically thick to an optically thin state, and so offer excellent laboratories for the study of planet formation."
• "On gas drag in a circular binary system" by Ciecielag, P. with S. Ida, A. Gawryszczak & A. Burkert, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 4 July - Quote: "We investigate both analytically and numerically the motion of massless particles orbiting primary star in a close circular binary system with particular focus on the gas drag effects... The results are important mainly in the context of planetesimal formation and, to a lesser degree, during the early planetesimal accretion stage."
• " Far Infrared Properties of M Dwarfs" by Gautier III, Thomas. N. with G.H. Rieke, John Stansberry & 9 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 4 July - Quote: "We report the mid- and far-infrared properties of nearby M dwarfs. Spitzer/MIPS measurements were obtained for a sample of 62 stars [looking] for indications of circumstellar dust... At 24 um, all 62 of the targets were detected; 70 um detections were achieved for 20 targets in the subsample observed; and no detections were seen in the 160 um subsample. No clear far-infrared excesses were detected in our sample."

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NEOCP Activity  on 4 July '07

The MPC's NEO Confirmation Page has 2 listings: 2 new

When last checked at 2355 UTC today, the Minor Planet Center's NEO discovery Confirmation Page (NEOCP) had two new listings. Both of these were "one nighters."

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New MPECs  on 4 July '07

Minor Planet Electronic Circulars

As of last check at 2355 UTC, there has been one MPEC issued today from the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

<< DOU on 4 July '07 >>  MPEC 2007-N12 - "06:06 UT" - Daily Orbit Update

• Observations of small asteroids (H>22.0)
• K07M04B   2007 MB4 (arc=19 days, H=22.6 ~102m) from Great Shefford Obs. (July 2.09p2 & 3.95p4) and Powell Obs. (July 3.16p6 & 4.18-19p6)
• K07L00T   2007 LT (arc=15 days, H=22.5 ~107m) from Tim Spahr via Whipple Obs. (June 22.38-39p2)
• K07J16G   2007 JG16 (arc=53 days, H=23.6 ~65m) from Astronomical Research Obs. (ARO) (July 3.29-30p3)
• K06F36H   2006 FH36 (arc=2 opp, H=22.9 ~89m) from Spahr/Whipple (June 20.39p3)
• Observations of other objects
• K07M24B   2007 MB24 (i=47.7°, arc=9 days, H=18.5 ~676m) from Powell Obs. (July 3.21-22p5)
• K07M20T   2007 MT20 (arc=10 days, H=18.4 ~708m) from Powell Obs. (July 4.19-20p5)
• K07M13M   2007 MM13 (i=38.2°, arc=11 days, H=17.6 ~1.02 km) from Verona Obs. (June 25.87-88p4 & July 1.90-91p3), Great Shefford Obs. (July 2.03p3), Silver Spring Obs. (July 3.10-13p2), and Powell Obs. (July 3.20p4 & 4.16-17p4)
• K07M13L   2007 ML13 (arc=11 days, H=20.2 ~309m) from Powell Obs. (July 3.17-18p3)
• K07M06L   2007 ML6 (arc=12 days, H=18.5 ~676m) from ARO (July 3.33p3)
• K07M04C   2007 MC4 (arc=15 days, H=21.1 ~204m) from Powell Obs. (July 3.19p3 & 4.17-18p3)
• K07M00R   2007 MR (arc=16 days, H=21.7 ~155m) from Great Shefford Obs. (July 3.96-97p3)
• K07M00H   2007 MH (arc=15 days, H=20.9 ~224m) from ARO (July 3.20p4)
• K07M00G   2007 MG (arc=16 days, H=21.0 ~214m) from ARO (July 3.15-16p3)
• K07L19V   2007 LV19 (arc=18 days, H=20.0 ~339m) from Powell Obs. (July 3.15p3)
• K07L19U   2007 LU19 (arc=17 days, H=21.5 ~170m) from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) (July 2.49p1)
• K07L15B   2007 LB15 (arc=14 days, H=19.5 ~426m) from Spahr/Whipple (June 20.45-46p2, 21.43p2 & 22.43p2)
• K07L15A   2007 LA15 (arc=18 days, H=19.4 ~446m) from Madonna di Dossobuono Obs. (June 26.90-91p3)
• K07L08V   2007 LV8 (arc=21 days, H=20.0 ~339m) from Verona Obs. (June 23.89-90p3), Powell Obs. (July 3.13-14p5), and ARO (July 3.17p5)
• K07L00F   2007 LF (arc=24 days, H=20.5 ~269m) from Cima Rest Obs. (June 22.86-87p3)
• K07L00D   2007 LD (arc=27 days, H=19.1 ~513m) from the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope (July 4.19-20p3)
• K07J35J   2007 JJ35 (i=56.1°, arc=50 days, H=18.5 ~676m) from ARO (July 3.10-11p3)
• K07J02X   2007 JX2 (arc=56 days, H=19.4 ~446m) from Spacewatch 1.8m (July 4.17p2)
• K07G05Z   2007 GZ5 (arc=79 days, H=21.2 ~195m) from ARO (July 3.13-14p3)
• K07F01K   2007 FK1 (arc=108 days, H=20.2 ~309m) from ARO (July 3.31-32p6)
• K07E00Y   2007 EY (arc=55 days, H=19.8 ~371m) from Lawrence H. Wasserman via Cerro Tololo Inter-American Obs. (CTIO) (April 22.25p1 & 22.31p1)
• K07D83B   2007 DB83 (arc=3 opp, H=18.3 ~741m) from New Millennium Obs. (March 13.96-12p13)
• K07D08K   2007 DK8 (arc=136 days, H=19.0 ~537m) from New Millennium Obs. (March 13.96-11p12) and Montcabre Obs. (July 3.02-03p3)
• K07C26K   2007 CK26 (arc=2 opp, H=19.1 ~513m) from Rob Matson using the Siding Spring Digital Sky Survey (1995 Aug. 29.55p1 & 1995 Aug. 29.60p1)
• K06W03L   2006 WL3 (arc=203 days, H=20.0 ~339m) from SSS (May 25.65-66p2)
• K06S19U   2006 SU19 (arc=2 opp, H=19.1 ~513m) from Spacewatch 1.8m (July 4.18-19p3)
• K06R36O   2006 RO36 (arc=2 opp, H=18.0 ~851m) from Spahr/Whipple (June 20.43p2)
• K05N44W   2005 NW44 (arc=2 opp, H=20.4 ~282m) from Cima Rest Obs. (June 22.94p3)
• K04Q17C   2004 QC17 (arc=3 opp, H=18.8 ~589m) from ARO (July 3.23-24p3)
• K03A73L   2003 AL73 (Q=4.310 AU, arc=3 opp, H=19.4 ~446m) from ARO (July 3.25-26p3)
• K02E09Q   2002 EQ9 (arc=3 opp, H=19.4 ~446m) from New Millennium Obs. (March 14.08-17p7)
• F4807   154807 2004 PP97 from New Millennium Obs. (March 14.04-17p14)
• F4453   154453 2003 CJ11 from New Millennium Obs. (March 14.07-17p7)
• E5656   145656 4788 P-L from New Millennium Obs. (March 14.01-18p14)
• E1018   141018 2001 WC47 from Powell Obs. (July 4.14-15p4)
• D8883   138883 2000 YL29 from New Millennium Obs. (March 13.96-13p14)
• 68216   68216 2001 CV26 from New Millennium Obs. (March 14.01-18p13)
• 04257   4257 Ubasti (1987 QA) from New Millennium Obs. (March 14.03-16p12)

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Observers  on 4 July '07

Fourteen observing facilities appear in today's MPECs.

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Impact Risk Monitoring  on 4 July '07

At last check (NEODyS and JPL at 2355 UTC) there was no risk monitoring news to report yet today.

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Chronology  on 4 July '07

Times are UTC for when the items were noted by Major News.