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For tomorrow's explorers from a news item yesterday, the MIT BioSuit is described as safer and much more flexible to work in than today's spacesuits. A prototype is modeled here by Dava Newman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems. She, "her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm ... have been working on the project for about seven years." Credit: MIT.

Contents  on 17 July '07

• Minor-Object News -- four items
• Minor-Object Science -- four papers
• IAU Minor Planet Center
  • NEOCP Activity -- seven listings: 1 new, 6 updated
  • New MPECs -- one MPEC
  • Observers -- eleven 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 17 July '07

• "July 15th Dawn Journal," NASA Dawn mission 15 July - Quote: "Phoenix has been scheduled for pad A, and Dawn's departure will be from pad B. The pads are less than 175 meters (575 feet) apart, and prudence dictates that a rocket not launch from one when a spacecraft ... is mounted on a rocket at the adjacent one... The [Dawn] spacecraft and third stage of the Delta rocket are being prepared now for removal from the second stage. They will be transported to the clean room at nearby Astrotech Space Operations before being returned to the launch pad in less than two months."
• "The New Largest Telescope in the World," Sky & Telescope 16 July - Quote: "[The] the light-collecting area of the Spanish monster [GTC] scope will be equivalent to that of a single 10.4-meter mirror -- a 4% increase in diameter over Keck... The special-design Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas and the similar SALT Telescope in South Africa are often listed as having mirrors 11 meters wide, but only parts of their mirrors direct light to the focus at once."
• "Keck Foundation Donates $1.5 million to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope," UC Davis 16 July - Quote: "The support from the Keck Foundation is for the final phase of research and development of focal plane imagers, which will capture images in the telescope's giant ... three-billion pixel digital camera... The focal plane imagers are the heart of the telescope, enabling a field of view of 10 square degrees, or 50 times the size of the moon. Coupled with the light-gathering power of the [8.4m survey] telescope, this novel focal plane imager will provide unprecedented sky coverage, cadence and depth."
• "July 18 conference in Washington D.C. to examine impact of civilian space travel," Space Frontier Foundation at SpaceRef.com 16 July - Quote: "The emerging commercial space industry predicts tens of thousands of people will travel in space in the next 10 to 20 years, with stays at orbiting hotels, or while working at such hotels. Other space travelers will be living and working on orbiting solar power arrays, moon and asteroid mines and other commercial space business-related stations."

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Minor-Object Science  on 17 July '07

• "Absolute Calibration and Characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. III. An Asteroid-based Calibration of MIPS at 160 microns" by Stansberry, J.A. with K.D. Gordon, B. Bhattacharya & 15 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 17 July - Quote: "After the on-orbit discovery of a near-IR ghost image that dominates the signal for sources hotter than about 2000 K, we adopted a strategy utilizing asteroids to transfer the absolute calibrations of the MIPS 24 and 70 micron channels to the 160 micron channel."
• "On the evolution of eccentric and inclined protoplanets embedded in protoplanetary disks" by Cresswell, Paul with Gerben Dirksen, Willy Kley & Richard P. Nelson, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 17 July - Quote: "Young planets embedded in their protoplanetary disk interact gravitationally with it leading to energy and angular momentum exchange. This interaction determines the evolution of the planet through changes to the orbital parameters. We investigate changes in the orbital elements of a 20 Earth-mass planet due to the torques from the disk [treating] the disk as a two- or three-dimensional viscous fluid and perform hydrodynamical simulations with an embedded planet."
• "The impact of initial density profile on protoplanetary disc evolution simulation" by Lazareva, G.G. with A.V. Snytnikov & V.A. Vshivkov, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 17 July - Quote: "[The] impact of initial density profile is large within the employed numerical model."
• "On the Rapid Collapse and Evolution of Molecular Clouds" by Elmegreen, Bruce G., abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 17 July - Quote: "Stars generally form faster than the ambipolar diffusion time, suggesting that several processes short circuit the delay and promote a rapid collapse. These processes are considered here, including turbulence compression in the outer parts of giant molecular cloud (GMC) cores and GMC envelopes, GMC core formation in an initially supercritical state, and compression-induced triggering in dispersing GMC envelopes."

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NEOCP Activity  on 17 July '07

The MPC's NEO Confirmation Page has 7 listings: 1 new, 6 updated

When last checked at 2333 UTC today, the Minor Planet Center's NEO discovery Confirmation Page (NEOCP) had one new and six updated listings. Of these, three were "one nighters."

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New MPECs  on 17 July '07

Minor Planet Electronic Circulars

As of last check at 2333 UTC, there has been one MPEC issued today from the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

<< DOU on 17 July '07 >>  MPEC 2007-O04 - "06:07 UT" - Daily Orbit Update

• Observations of small asteroids (H>22.0)
• K07L19T   2007 LT19 (arc=31 days, H=25.3 ~29m) from Astronomical Research Obs. (ARO) (July 16.36-39p3 at V=22.8-9)
• Observations of other objects
• K07N00Q   2007 NQ (arc=6 days, H=19.5 ~426m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (July 13.86-88p5), Lumezzane Obs. (July 15.86-87p4), and ARO (July 16.12p2)
• K07M24B   2007 MB24 (i=47.7°, arc=22 days, H=18.4 ~708m) from New Millennium Obs. (July 13.93-02p12)
• K07M13M   2007 MM13 (i=38.2°, arc=23 days, H=17.6 ~1.02 km) from Stia Obs. (July 15.85-88p3)
• K07M06L   2007 ML6 (arc=24 days, H=18.5 ~676m) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.34-35p2)
• K07L32R   2007 LR32 (arc=51 days, H=17.2 ~1.23 km) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.32-33p3) and Stia Obs. (July 13.91p4)
• K07L00V   2007 LV (arc=37 days, H=18.2 ~776m) from Mt. John Obs. (July 16.44-45p3)
• K07L00L   2007 LL (arc=38 days, H=20.4 ~282m) from ARO (July 16.10-11p3)
• K07L00D   2007 LD (arc=39 days, H=18.9 ~562m) from ARO (July 16.12-13p3)
• K07H82X   2007 HX82 (Q=4.096 AU, arc=81 days, H=20.4 ~282m) from Lumezzane Obs. (July 15.89-90p4)
• K07H15E   2007 HE15 (arc=84 days, H=19.8 ~371m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (July 15.09-10p5)
• K07G05Z   2007 GZ5 (arc=92 days, H=21.2 ~195m) from ARO (July 16.14-16p3)
• K07E88K   2007 EK88 (arc=124 days, H=21.5 ~170m) from ARO (July 16.20-23p3 at V=22.1)
• K07D08F   2007 DF8 (arc=144 days, H=20.3 ~295m) from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) (July 15.59-63p4)
• K06K89E   2006 KE89 (i=45.1°, q=0.211 AU, arc=3 opp, H=16.5 ~1.70 km) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.20p2)
• K05N44W   2005 NW44 (arc=2 opp, H=20.4 ~282m) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.22p2)
• K04S09T   2004 ST9 (arc=2 opp, H=18.0 ~851m) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.31-32p2), New Millennium Obs. (July 13.93-02p13), and LINEAR (July 16.30-33p3)
• K03M09T   2003 MT9 (q=0.200 AU, Q=4.874 AU, arc=2 opp, H=18.6 ~645m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (July 16.07p4) and LINEAR (July 16.23-33p21)
• K03H02F   2003 HF2 (q=0.361 AU, arc=4 opp, H=19.6 ~407m) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.24-30p3)
• J99V06O   1999 VO6 (i=40.1°, q=0.297 AU, arc=8 opp, H=17.0 ~1.35 km) from Bergen-Enkheim Obs. (July 15.95-99p5)
• J95L00G   1995 LG (i=43.6°, q=0.223 AU, arc=4 opp, H=18.7 ~616m) from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.22-26p2)
• D6818   136818 1997 MW1 from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.25-31p3) and New Millennium Obs. (July 13.89p1 & 13.94p2)
• 87309   87309 2000 QP from LINEAR (July 16.34-38p5)
• 85275   85275 1994 LY from Camarillo Obs. (July 12.23-30p3), New Millennium Obs. (July 13.89-98p14), and Thousand Oaks Obs. (July 16.25p1, 16.32p1 & 16.40p1)
• 18882   18882 1999 YN4 from LINEAR (July 16.24-28p5)
• 04954   4954 Eric (1990 SQ) from SSS (July 16.72-75p4)

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Observers  on 17 July '07

Eleven observing facilities appear in today's MPECs.

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Impact Risk Monitoring  on 17 July '07

At last check (NEODyS and JPL at 2333 UTC) there was no risk monitoring news to report yet today.

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Chronology  on 17 July '07

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