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In this presentation being made public today (see more below), DigitalSpace renders up a vision of how humans could land on an asteroid using NASA's Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, shown here on approach. Image courtesy of Digital Space, some rights reserved.

Contents  on 30 July '07

• Minor-Object News -- six items
• Minor-Object Science -- one paper
• IAU Minor Planet Center
  • NEOCP Activity -- two listings: 1 new, 1 updated
  • New MPECs -- two MPECs
  • Observers -- six 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 30 July '07

• "AZ's long road to Mars," Arizona Daily Star 30 July - Quote: "When [Andrew Ellicott] Douglass joined the UA's faculty in 1906, the only equipment was a secondhand 4-inch telescope [but he campaigned for something better]... He finally succeeded in 1916, when ... Lavinia Steward donated $60,000 in memory of her late husband. In April 1923, the Steward Observatory was dedicated, and work began with a 36-inch telescope." - Note: That telescope was moved to Kitt Peak in 1962 and is known today as the Spacewatch 0.9-meter. Many more articles, as well as videos and slide shows, in this "Space U" series on Arizona astronomy can be found here.
• "NASA Insiders Propose Stepping Stone Path to Deep Space," Space.com 30 July - Quote: "Internal looks by a small group of NASA 'NEOphytes' have projected that a human trek to one of those mini-worlds may involve two or three astronauts on a 90 to 120-day spaceflight... Dispatching astronauts to a NEO is a sensible idea, said Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut, geologist and current chair of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC)."
  • "Design Simulation for a Human Mission to a Near Earth Object," DigitalSpace 30 July - Quote: "DigitalSpace ... today released their design simulation of a notional crewed mission to an as-yet unidentified asteroid ... which might pass near the Earth sometime in the future. This visualization is DigitalSpace's design concept for the mission, produced by DigitalSpace as an independent effort for the benefit of an internal NASA feasibility study completed in 2007. The NASA study was performed to show that such a mission is possible with NASA's new Constellation architecture which was designed to return humans to the moon. DigitalSpace received input from numerous experts inside and outside of NASA to produce the following images and video of the concept mission visualization."
  • "How to land a spacecraft on an asteroid," CNET News.com 30 July - Quote: "'On an asteroid, it's a different environment that requires a whole new way to land a spacecraft,' said Bruce Damer, president and CEO of DigitalSpace. 'It's like insects being blown around by the wind; they have all this technology to hold onto your arm.'"
• "Ames Astrobleme Museum records meteor crater history," Enid News 29 July - Quote: "Ames Day will be pretty special this year with the opening of a museum dedicated to the meteor crater the town sits atop ... at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 18... The crater was caused by a meteor striking the area 450 million years ago. There is sediment two miles deep covering the crater... Jack Stark, a geologist for Continental Resources, said the crater is eight miles in diameter and ... is one of the few oil-producing craters in the world."
• "Birth of a Colossus on Wheels," ESO 30 July - Quote: "This vehicle, the ALMA antenna transporter, is a rather exceptional 'lorry' driving on 28 tyres. It is 10m wide, 20m long and 6m high, weighs 130 tons and has as much power as two Formula 1 engines. This colossus will be able to transport a 115-ton antenna and set it down on a concrete pad within millimetres of a prescribed position... The telescopes can be moved across the high-altitude desert Chajnantor plateau, covering antenna configurations as compact as 150 metres to as wide as 15 kilometres. Changing the relative positions of the antennas and thus also the configuration of the array allows for different observing modes, comparable to using a zoom lens on a camera."

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Minor-Object Science  on 30 July '07

• "Detection of warm molecular hydrogen in the circumstellar disk around the Herbig Ae star HD97048" by Martin-Zaidi, C. with P.O. Lagage, E. Pantin & E. Habart, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 30 July - Quote: "This detection reinforces the claim that HD97048 is a young object surrounded by a flared disk at an early stage of evolution. The emitting warm gas is located within the inner 35 AU of the disk. The line-to-continuum flux ratio is much higher than expected from models of disks at local thermodynamics equilibrium. We investigate the possible physical conditions ... to explain the detection. We tentatively estimate the mass of warm gas to be in the range from 0.01 to nearly 1 Jupiter Mass."

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NEOCP Activity  on 30 July '07

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

When last checked at 2354 UTC today, the Minor Planet Center's NEO discovery Confirmation Page (NEOCP) had one new and one updated listing. Of these, one was a "one nighter." So far Major News has counted a total of three objects listed on the NEOCP at some point today.

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 30 July '07

Minor Planet Electronic Circulars

As of last check at 2354 UTC, there have been two MPECs issued today from the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• MPEC 2007-O54 time-stamped "06:07 UT" - Daily Orbit Update - see below
• MPEC 2007-O55 time-stamped "14:58 UT" - 2007 OG8

MPEC 2007-O55 - "14:58 UT" - 2007 OG8

• K07O08G   2007 OG8 (i=46.9°, H=16.2 ~1.95 km) was discovered at 1929 UT 26 July by the Siding Spring Survey (SSS), which observed it at July 26.81-83p3 and 27.77-83p4. The discovery was confirmed by Great Shefford Obs. (July 28.11p2 & 30.10-12p2), the FTP education program via Faulkes Telescope North (July 28.56-57p3), and Schiaparelli Obs. (July 29.08-11p2).

<< DOU on 30 July '07 >>  MPEC 2007-O54 - "06:07 UT" - Daily Orbit Update

• Observations of small asteroids (H>22.0)
• K07D61B   2007 DB61 (arc=16 days, H=23.6 ~65m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (Feb. 28.98-99p3)
• K07D00J   2007 DJ (arc=17 days, H=24.3 ~47m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (March 1.05p5)
• Observations of other objects
• K07M20T   2007 MT20 (arc=36 days, H=18.7 ~616m) from Great Shefford Obs. (July 29.94p3)
• K07L32R   2007 LR32 (arc=65 days, H=17.2 ~1.23 km) from Santa Mama Obs. (July 28.93-96p4)
• K07L15A   2007 LA15 (arc=46 days, H=19.4 ~446m) from Santa Mama Obs. (July 28.84-86p4)
• K07DA3T   2007 DT103 (arc=154 days, H=18.6 ~645m) from Great Shefford Obs. (July 29.95p3)
• K07C26O   2007 CO26 (Q=4.508 AU, arc=58 days, H=21.3 ~186m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (March 1.06-07p5)
• K06V13D   2006 VD13 (arc=2 opp, H=19.0 ~537m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (Feb. 28.93-94p2)
• K05C25W   2005 CW25 (arc=3 opp, H=18.6 ~645m) from Schiaparelli Obs. (March 1.03-04p3)
• 01685   1685 Toro (1948 OA) from Los Molinos Obs. (July 29.09-13p4)

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Observers  on 30 July '07

Six observing facilities appear in today's MPECs.

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Impact Risk Monitoring  on 30 July '07

At last check (NEODyS and JPL at 2354 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 30 July '07

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