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Back at the Astrotech payload processing facility, still mated to its third-stage booster, the Dawn spacecraft now awaits its next launch opportunity. Credit: NASA KSC.

Contents  on 27 July '07

• Minor-Object News -- six items
• Minor-Object Science -- two papers
• IAU Minor Planet Center
  • NEOCP Activity -- two listings: 1 new, 1 updated
  • New MPECs -- two MPECs
  • 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

The latest news: framed access (best), RSS news feed (flags updates), or redirection - Note: A/CC has a main Web site and a backup site.

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 through a calendar interface. And use the all-up news archive to access news from any time 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 27 July '07

• "Early days of the 'Luny' Lab," Arizona Star 24 July - Quote: "To this day in planetary science a gulf remains between the ones who came from the astronomy stream and the ones who came from the geology stream... This whole 40-year period has been a continual transition of the solar system and planets from astronomical objects to geological objects. It's a little bit of a weird field, but there are fantastic opportunities for interdisciplinary science." - Note: That's a quote from Bill Hartmann from a piece about the history of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the beginnings of planetary geology. Other items in this blog about Arizona education, including more on UA astronomy, can be found here.
• "UA Optical Sciences Team to Move Thin, Giant Mirror," Univ. of Arizona 26 July - Quote: "How do you move a 6,700-pound telescope mirror that's 14 feet across but only four inches thick? University of Arizona optical scientists and technicians ... plan to move the mirror ... to a polishing table [as] the next step in finishing the 4.3-meter (14 foot) primary mirror for the Discovery Channel Telescope... After months of grinding to get the mirror closer to its ideal shape, the team will polish the mirror to an accuracy of a fraction of a wavelength of light."
• "Observing The Past," Harvard Crimson 27 July - Quote: "The Harvard College Observatory, home to half a million glass photographic plates of the night sky from over 100 years of observations, is currently in the midst of one of the greatest preservation efforts in astronomical history [digitizing the plates for public access]... 'No professor is going to spend $5,000 of his grant to give an undergrad a night on a telescope,' [Jeffrey J. Blair '09] said. 'But with this data, you could conceivably be doing research as a freshman that would turn into a publishable paper.'" - Note: See Digital Access to a Sky Century at Harvard (DASCH), more info about the plate collection, and Web search forms.
• "Emerald isles," St. Petersburg Times 27 July - Quote: "Saaremaa is the largest of Estonia's 1,500-plus islands... The island's most famous sights include Kaali Meteorite Crater lake, the largest of a number of meteorite craters presumably formed by an iron-nickel meteorite that split in the atmosphere and fell to earth in pieces in around 700 B.C... Close to the 110-meter hole filled with greenish water, there is a private museum-cum-hotel."
• "Prairie Meteorite Search comes to Swift Current," Southwest Booster 27 July - Quote: "On August 3rd at the Swift Current Museum, Nathan Seon, a geology student at the University of Regina, will be examining possible meteorites as a part of the Prairie Meteorite Search."
• "Space monster discovered," Chemistry World 27 July - Quote: "Astrochemists who waited 25 years to find an anion in space have spotted three in less than a year. The latest ... is the largest negatively charged molecule ever seen in space... [This bonanza shows] that chemical reactions in space are more complicated than theorists had assumed [and] means more potential routes to the complex organic molecules which, via comets and meteorites, may have seeded life on the early Earth." - Note: See also the related NRAO news release.

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Minor-Object Science  on 27 July '07

• " Near-Infrared Interferometric, Spectroscopic, and Photometric Monitoring of T Tauri Inner Disks" by Eisner, J.A. with L.A. Hillenbrand, R.J. White & 3 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 27 July - Quote: "We present high angular resolution observations ... of 11 solar-type T Tauri stars in 9 systems. We use these observations to probe the circumstellar material within 1 AU of these young stars [to investigate] potential correlations between inner disk properties and stellar or accretion properties. We suggest that the mechanism by which the dusty inner disk is truncated may depend on the accretion rate of the source; in objects with low accretion rates, the stellar magnetospheres may truncate the disks, while sublimation may truncate dusty disks around sources with higher accretion rates. We have also included in our sample objects that are known to be highly variable... While time-variable veilings and accretion rates are observed in some sources, no strong evidence for inner disk pulsation is found."
• "Charging of Fractal Dust Agglomerates in a Plasma Environment" by Matthews, L.S. with T.W. Hyde, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 27 July - Quote: "In studying the coagulation of micron-sized dust grains [an important process in planetesimal formation] it has become evident that the charge on the grains plays a crucial role in the structure and evolution of the resulting aggregates in the dust population... Preliminary models for the charge evolution on fractal aggregates immersed in a plasma environment ... are presented in this paper... While most coagulation theories assume that it is difficult for like-charged grains to coagulate, [our] approximation indicates that the electric potentials of aggregate structures are often reduced enough to allow significant coagulation."

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NEOCP Activity  on 27 July '07

The MPC's NEO Confirmation Page has 2 listings: 1 new, 1 updated

When last checked at 2355 UTC today, the Minor Planet Center's NEO discovery Confirmation Page (NEOCP) had one new and one updated listing.

To learn how observers use the NEOCP, see Suno Observatory's Practical guide on how to observe NEOCP object.

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New MPECs  on 27 July '07

Minor Planet Electronic Circulars

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

• MPEC 2007-O50 time-stamped "06:09 UT" - Daily Orbit Update - see below
• MPEC 2007-O51 time-stamped "10:31 UT" - 2005 XW77

MPEC 2007-O51 - "10:31 UT" - 2005 XW77

• K05X77W   2005 XW77 (H=20.9 ~224m) from Great Shefford Obs. (July 24.96p2, 25.01p2 & 26.93-95p3) and Schiaparelli Obs. (July 27.03-04p3)

<< DOU on 27 July '07 >>  MPEC 2007-O50 - "06:09 UT" - Daily Orbit Update

• Observations of small asteroids (H>22.0)
• K07O03H   2007 OH3 (arc=6 days, H=24.6 ~41m) from Astronomical Research Obs. (ARO) (July 25.19p3 & 26.25p3)
• Observations of almost-small asteroids (21.7<H<=22.0)
• K07N01L   2007 NL1 (arc=15 days, H=21.9 ~141m) from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) (July 26.74p2)
• Observations of other objects
• K07O00Y   2007 OY (arc=7 days, H=20.8 ~234m) from SSS (July 25.69-70p2)
• K07O00X   2007 OX (arc=7 days, H=21.1 ~204m) from SSS (July 25.65-66p2)
• K07O00V   2007 OV (arc=10 days, H=19.1 ~513m) from SSS (July 25.69p2) and Tiki Obs. (July 26.63-65p2)
• K07N05C   2007 NC5 (q=0.278 AU, Q=4.608 AU, arc=22 days, H=17.9 ~891m) from Homburg-Erbach Obs. (July 25.07p1 & 26.07-10p2) and Castelmartini Obs. (July 26.00-01p3)
• K07N00Q   2007 NQ (arc=15 days, H=19.3 ~467m) from Castelmartini Obs. (July 25.92p4)
• K07M24B   2007 MB24 (i=47.7°, arc=32 days, H=18.2 ~776m) from New Millennium Obs. (July 25.92-96p8)
• K07M06L   2007 ML6 (arc=35 days, H=18.5 ~676m) from SSS (July 25.68p2 & 26.58p2)
• K07L32R   2007 LR32 (arc=62 days, H=17.2 ~1.23 km) from Homburg-Erbach Obs. (July 24.99-03p3 & 26.01-05p3), Castelmartini Obs. (July 25.88-89p5), Hamamatsu-Yuto Obs. (July 26.58-60p6 & 26.65p4), and Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.88p7)
• K07L15A   2007 LA15 (arc=44 days, H=19.4 ~446m) from Castelmartini Obs. (July 25.90-91p5) and Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.85-86p3)
• K07L00L   2007 LL (arc=47 days, H=20.4 ~282m) from ARO (July 25.10-11p3)
• K07H15E   2007 HE15 (arc=95 days, H=19.6 ~407m) from Castelmartini Obs. (July 26.04-05p5) and ARO (July 26.34-35p3)
• K07F42V   2007 FV42 (arc=128 days, H=17.9 ~891m) from SSS (July 26.57p3)
• K07F01L   2007 FL1 (arc=130 days, H=18.7 ~616m) from SSS (July 25.66-67p2)
• K07E88K   2007 EK88 (arc=133 days, H=21.5 ~170m) from ARO (July 25.15-20p4 at V=22.3-5)
• K07D08K   2007 DK8 (arc=158 days, H=19.0 ~537m) from ARO (July 25.30-31p3)
• K07D08F   2007 DF8 (arc=155 days, H=20.3 ~295m) from SSS (July 26.64p2)
• K07C26K   2007 CK26 (arc=2 opp, H=19.1 ~513m) from Castelmartini Obs. (July 25.87p4)
• K07C15H   2007 CH15 (arc=167 days, H=21.6 ~162m) from ARO (July 25.12-14p3)
• K06Y13C   2006 YC13 (arc=214 days, H=20.3 ~295m) from ARO (July 26.26-27p3)
• K06A00D   2006 AD (i=55.0°, arc=3 opp, H=16.7 ~1.55 km) from SSS (July 25.83p1)
• K04XD0M   2004 XM130 (arc=3 opp, H=17.0 ~1.35 km) from ARO (July 26.31-33p2 at V=22.2-3)
• K04S09T   2004 ST9 (arc=2 opp, H=18.0 ~851m) from Wildberg Obs. (July 26.93-94p3)
• K03M09T   2003 MT9 (q=0.200 AU, Q=4.874 AU, arc=2 opp, H=18.7 ~616m) from Eschenberg Obs. (July 25.84p8)
• K02O20D   2002 OD20 (arc=4 opp, H=18.8 ~589m) from ARO (July 25.32-34p2)
• J96S00K   1996 SK (Q=4.362 AU, arc=4 opp, H=17.0 ~1.35 km) from ARO (July 25.25-29p3 at V=22.2-4)
• E5656   145656 4788 P-L from Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.84-85p7)
• D6818   136818 1997 MW1 from New Millennium Obs. (July 25.91-96p9)
• 87309   87309 2000 QP from Homburg-Erbach Obs. (July 25.92-96p3), Castelmartini Obs. (July 25.99-00p5), and Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.87p7)
• 86324   86324 1999 WA2 from Hamamatsu-Yuto Obs. (July 26.64p6) and Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.86-87p7)
• 85275   85275 1994 LY from New Millennium Obs. (July 25.90-97p12), Hamamatsu-Yuto Obs. (July 26.56p3), and Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.84p7)
• 16636   16636 1993 QP from Eschenberg Obs. (July 26.89p3)
• 04197   4197 1982 TA from SSS (July 26.36-38p4)

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Observers  on 27 July '07

Eleven observing facilities appear in today's MPECs.

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Impact Risk Monitoring  on 27 July '07

At last check (NEODyS at 2355 and JPL at 2356 UTC) there was no risk monitoring news to report yet today. See the CRT for activity in the last month.

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Chronology  on 27 July '07

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