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Contents  on 30 August '07

• Minor-Object News -- eight items
• Minor-Object Science -- three papers
• IAU Minor Planet Center
  • NEOCP Activity
  • New MPECs -- three MPECs
  • Observers -- seventeen observing facilities
• Impact Risk Monitoring -- one object reported
• 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 August '07

• Bits & pieces: On this day fifteen years ago the first object to be classified as a member of the then theoretical Kuiper Belt was discovered by David Jewitt and Jane Luu during a search for such objects with the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea. See details and images on Jewitt's 1992 QB1 page. Unlike the actual first Kuiper Belt discovery -- 134340 Pluto found in 1930, 15760 1992 QB1 is not in resonance with Neptune.
        Cloudbait Observatory has an all-sky movie with meteors flying about during Tuesday morning's lunar eclipse that you can see on its eclipse page. And Jim Young, whose professional astrometrical work appears often in MPECs, had an image of the eclipse from his backyard telescope published as Space.com's picture of the day Wednesday.
        Is light pollution a problem where you are? Like casino searchlights near Mt. Palomar? The North County Times reported August 22nd that they have been turned off. {permalink}
• "Surprise Meteor Showers," Peter Jenniskens/SETI Inst. at Space.com 30 Aug. - Quote: "An unexpected meteor shower popped up during the annual Perseids shower Aug. 11-13, 2007. Among the fast-moving Perseids were several slow-moving meteors from a shower called the 'Kappa Cygnids' [which] had last erupted in 1993, and perhaps also in 1999... [They] do not have a known parent body, and no predictions can be made yet to forecast the next return." {permalink}
• "Profs to Defend Arecibo Funding in D.C.," Cornell Daily Sun 30 Aug. - Quote: "On November 3, 2006, the National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a 'Senior Review' report that advised that the NSF cut Arecibo's funding by 20 to 25 percent [and if] Cornell could not find other sources of funding ... that the observatory be shut down. Since then, the NSF's financial situation has changed, but their decision apparently has not... One of the major topics to be discussed [in Washington, D.C. next month] is the future of Arecibo's powerful planetary radar." {permalink}
• "Sleet Storm in Space," Time 30 Aug. - Quote: "If the Rochester astronomers are right, the idea that comets are pristine remnants of the material from which our solar system originally formed isn't going to hold up." {permalink}
  • "Water pours on young star system," BBC News 30 Aug. - Quote: "NGC 1333-IRAS 4B is located in a star-forming region about 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus." {permalink}
  • "Supersonic 'Hail' Seeds Star Systems With Water," National Geographic 29 Aug. - Quote: "The team has already identified hundreds more protostar systems like IRAS 4B and plans to observe them with the Spitzer telescope." - Note: See related news releases yesterday. {permalink}
• "Could life rise in a comet?" Christian Science Monitor at USA Today 30 Aug. - Quote: "Welcome to The Twilight Zone of science, where fact melds with speculation. Scientific knowledge consists of verifiable facts and well-tested theories. But to gain reliable knowledge, scientists often let their imaginations run ahead of what they actually know." {permalink}
• "Ancient Sudbury meteorite blasted debris into Michigan," Amherst Daily News 29 Aug. - Quote: "The 'ejecta layer,' which the geologists found buried a kilometre underground south of Lake Superior, builds on similar evidence uncovered near Thunder Bay, Ont., a few years ago." {permalink}

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Minor-Object Science  on 30 August '07

• "Rapid planetesimal formation in turbulent circumstellar discs" by Johansen, Anders with Jeffrey S. Oishi, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low & 3 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 30 Aug. - Quote: "The initial stages of planet formation in circumstellar gas discs proceed via dust grains that collide and build up larger and larger bodies... How this process continues from metre-sized boulders to kilometre-scale planetesimals is a major unsolved problem... [Boulders] stick together poorly ... and spiral into the protostar in a few hundred orbits due to a head wind from the slower rotating gas... Here we report the discovery of efficient gravitational collapse of boulders in locally overdense regions in the midplane." - Note: See Space.com's report yesterday. {permalink}
• "Supplementary Information for 'Rapid planetesimal formation in turbulent circumstellar discs'" by Johansen, Anders with Jeffrey S. Oishi, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low & 3 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 30 Aug. - Quote: "This document contains refereed supplementary information [in] 15 sections ... that address a number of subjects related to the main paper." {permalink}
• "Multiplicity Among Young Brown Dwarfs and Very Low Mass Stars" by Ahmic, Mirza with Ray Jayawardhana, Alexis Brandeker & 4 others, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 30 Aug. - Quote: "Here we report on a near-IR AO imaging survey of 31 young brown dwarfs and VLM stars, 28 of which are in Chamaeleon I, using the ESO VLT... We do not find companions around the majority of our targets ... thus confirming the trend for a lower binary frequency with decreasing mass. By combining our work with previous surveys, we arrive at the largest sample of young VLMOs (72) with high angular resolution imaging to date... [The] observations to date suggest that VLM objects are either less likely to be born in fragile multiple systems than solar mass stars or such systems are disrupted very early." {permalink}

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NEOCP Activity  on 30 August '07

The MPC's NEO Confirmation Page is currently empty

The NEOCP is currently empty. There were three listings noted earlier today.

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New MPECs  on 30 August '07

Minor Planet Electronic Circulars

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

• MPEC 2007-Q42 time-stamped "06:07 UT" - Daily Orbit Update - see below
• MPEC 2007-Q43 time-stamped "20:50 UT" - Comet P/2007 Q2 (Gilmore) - see below
• MPEC 2007-Q44 time-stamped "21:13 UT" - Comet C/2007 Q3 (Siding Spring)

MPEC 2007-Q44 - "21:13 UT" - Comet C/2007 Q3 (Siding Spring)

• CK07Q030   C/2007 Q3 (i=66.3°, q=2.319 AU, TP=2009 Oct. 19.198 TT) from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) (Aug. 25.76-81p19), Tiki Obs. (Aug. 27.42-46p3 & 29.59-63p3), Hibiscus Obs. (Aug. 29.60-63p3), and Australian Natl. Univ. 1m telescope (ANU 1m) (Aug. 30.75-78p4)

MPEC 2007-Q43 - "20:50 UT" - Comet P/2007 Q2 (Gilmore)

• PK07Q020   P/2007 Q2 (q=1.839 AU, Q=9.367 AU, TP=2007 Aug. 23.465 TT) from LINEAR (Aug. 22.27-31p4), Mt. John Obs. (Aug. 22.58-60p3 & 24.44-46p3), Gaisberg Obs. (Aug. 24.88p2), Andrushivka Obs. (Aug. 25.03-04p3), Great Shefford Obs. (Aug. 25.07-08p3, 25.94p1 & 25.00-04p2), Table Mtn. Obs. (Aug. 25.24-26p4), Eschenberg Obs. (Aug. 25.90-92p3), Suno Obs. (Aug. 25.96-97p2), Schiaparelli Obs. (Aug. 25.97p1, 26.05p1 & 26.10p1), Astronomical Research Obs. (ARO) (Aug. 26.26-27p3), Lulin Minor Bodies Tracking (LIMIT) (Aug. 27.68-69p4), and ANU 1m (Aug. 30.63-64p3)

<< DOU on 30 Aug. '07 >>  MPEC 2007-Q42 - "06:07 UT" - Daily Orbit Update

• Observations of risk-listed objects
• K07P27V   2007 PV27 (arc=15 days, H=20.3 ~295m) from ARO (Aug. 29.10-11p3) and Great Shefford Obs. (Aug. 29.90-91p3)
• Observations of small asteroids (H>22.0)
• K07P09S   2007 PS9 (arc=18 days, H=23.5 ~68m) from Great Shefford Obs. (Aug. 30.07-08p3)
• Observations of other objects
• K07Q02K   2007 QK2 (arc=9 days, H=20.4 ~282m) from ARO (Aug. 29.11-12p3) and Great Shefford Obs. (Aug. 30.02-04p3)
• K07P28F   2007 PF28 (arc=15 days, H=19.3 ~467m) from Great Shefford Obs. (Aug. 29.89p3)
• K07L32R   2007 LR32 (arc=95 days, H=17.2 ~1.23 km) from Lumijoki Obs. (Aug. 22.90-92p4)
• K07L19V   2007 LV19 (arc=75 days, H=19.8 ~371m) from ARO (Aug. 29.06-07p2)
• 16636   16636 1993 QP from Inastars Obs. (Aug. 29.92-94p3)

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Observers  on 30 August '07

Seventeen observing facilities appear in today's MPECs.

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Impact Risk Monitoring  on 30 August '07

Legend: VI# = VI count, Prob Cum = cumulative probability, PS Cum/Max = cumulative/maximum Palermo Scale, TS = Torino Scale

An impact solution, also known as a "virtual impactor" (VI), is not a prediction but rather a possibility derived from an orbit calculation that cannot be eliminated yet based on the existing data. Elimination can come quickly with just a little further observation or may take weeks or months, sometimes years. Once superceded or eliminated, a former impact solution has zero relevance to an object's risk. See Jon Giorgini's "Understanding Risk Pages" for more about this.

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Chronology  on 30 August '07

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