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Electronics engineer Peter Onaka (left) and astronomer John Tonry assemble the Pan-STARRS gigapixel camera. See more about this below. Credit: IfA/Richard Wainscoat.

Contents  on 31 August '07

• Minor-Object News -- fourteen items
• Minor-Object Science -- three papers
• IAU Minor Planet Center
  • NEOCP Activity
  • 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 31 August '07

• "SMART-1: Europe on the Moon, one year on," ESA 31 Aug. - Quote: "A year ago, as Europe reached the Moon for the first time, scientists on Earth eagerly watched SMART-1's spectacular impact. New results from the impact analysis and from the instruments still keep coming... Mike Burchell from the University of Kent showed laboratory simulations describing the impact crater's shape and size, predicting ricochet ejecta. As a detailed picture of the impact is taking shape, scientists now know that the spacecraft bounced over the surface, projecting debris at high altitude, which was traced by Christian Veillet with the Canada France Hawaii telescope." - Note: The impact was last September 3rd. See news links from August and September of 2006. {permalink}
• "It came from outer space," Wanganui Chronicle 1 Sept. - Quote: "[Te Rino Rapana] bought the rock/meteorite in a Wanganui garage sale more than 12 years ago... Last week [it] was described as an iron meteorite [and next] week Mr Rapana is taking his treasure to Massey University for geologists to examine." {permalink}
• "Rock from outer space," Regina Leader-Post 31 Aug. - Quote: "[This] brings the number now recovered in Saskatchewan to 15 and the total in Canada to a mere 74. The softball-sized [iron-nickle] meteorite hurled through Earth's atmosphere hundreds of years ago [and] found its resting place near Loreburn ... until 1999. Then, a Regina man working on a construction site found it... [He] did admit to using the celestial chunk as a doorstop." {permalink}
• "Asteroid attack," London Guardian 31 Aug. - Quote: "Aerospace company Astrium will propose a mission today, called Apex, that would launch in 2013 to meet Apophis and study it in detail... Apex would carry a laser altimeter to work out the asteroid's physical structure and properties and an infra-red spectrometer to work out what it is made of. In addition, it would refine astronomers' understanding of the asteroid's future trajectory." {permalink}
  • "British team's mission to help divert asteroid," London Telegraph 31 Aug. - Quote: "[The Planetary Society has offered a prize] for the group of researchers which can come up with the best mission plan to collect information on Apophis. More than 100 entries are expected. As yet there is no guarantee that the winning mission will take place." {permalink}
  • "UK plan to track asteroid threat," BBC News 31 Aug. - Quote: "UK space scientists and engineers have designed a mission to investigate a potentially hazardous asteroid... [Astrium's] design calls for a small, remote-sensing spacecraft, dubbed Apex, which could rendezvous with Apophis in January 2014." {permalink}
• "Museum's meteoric move," London Natural History Museum 31 Aug. - Quote: "Known as Cranbourne 1, the [3.5 tonne] meteorite was found in Victoria, Australia, in 1854. It is the first time the meteorite has been moved since it was brought to the Museum in the nineteenth century." {permalink}
• "Russia Space Agency plans protecting Earth from asteroids," ITAR-Tass 31 Aug. - Quote: "The Russian Federal Space Agency plans creating a system of anti-asteroid protection after 2026, the agency's director Anatoly Perminov told a news conference on Friday." - Note: This URL may be temporary. {permalink}
• "Scientists Sue NASA, Caltech Over New ID Checks," AP at Space.com 30 Aug. - Quote: "Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists and engineers sued NASA and the California Institute of Technology on Thursday, challenging extensive new background checks... JPL employees have until Sept. 28 to fill out forms authorizing the background checks. Those who don't will be barred from JPL and be 'voluntarily terminated' as of Oct. 27." {permalink}
• "World's Largest Digital Camera Installed on Maui Telescope," IfA 31 Aug. - Quote: "The world's largest [37.11x37.11 megapixels] and most advanced digital camera has been installed on the Pan-STARRS-1 (PS1) telescope on Haleakala... The silicon chips at the heart of the camera were developed in collaboration with Lincoln Laboratory [home of LINEAR] of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They contain advanced circuitry that makes instantaneous corrections for any image shake caused by Earth's turbulent atmosphere. The image area, which is about 16 inches (40 cm) across, contains 60 identical silicon chips, each of which contains 64 independent imaging circuits. Splitting the image area into about 4,000 separate regions in this way has three advantages: data can be recorded more quickly, 'dazzling' of the image by a very bright star is confined to a small region, and any defects in the chips only affect only a small part of the image area." - Note: See a picture above and learn more about the camera in July 21st news. {permalink}
• "Aurigid Meteoroid Shower," NASA MEO 30 Aug. - Quote: "The normal peak Aurigid rate is of the order of 5 per hour... There was some concern about the Aurigids storming this year, but according to the [MSFC Meteoroid Stream] model, the 2007 Aurigids will be on par with showers seen in 1935, 1986, and 1994: ZHR in the 40-50s (no storm)." - Note: "ZHR" is zenithal hourly rate, the number of meteors observable with the source direction (radiant) directly above the observer in a clear dark sky. {permalink}
  • More Aurigid info: See SpaceWeather.com today with a sky map, as well as reports at Science@NASA, Space.com, and Sky & Telescope with observing instructions. For more about the science of this event, see A/CC's August 7th report with many more links. {permalink}
  • "Rare Aurigid Meteor Shower to Appear Saturday," National Geographic 30 Aug. - Quote: "A meteor shower on Saturday morning will present a rare greeting from the distant Oort cloud located at the far edges of our solar system. The two-hour Aurigid meteor shower is predicted to peak around 4:30 a.m. Pacific daylight time on September 1, peppering Earth's sky with up to 200 shooting stars an hour." {permalink}
• "High (School) Honors," Sky & Telescope 29 Aug. - Note: This year's Astronomical League National Young Astronomer Award went to Naomi Pequette for her astronomy club service and for her study of the Orion Nebula where "Over 90 percent of the stars ... are surrounded by disks of dust," noting comparatively that "Our solar system formed in an Orion-like environment." And the League's Jack Horkheimer Award this year went to Carter Smith for his service work, including organizing a star party for "deaf, blind and low vision kids," and for his research on the dark sky issue. {permalink}

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Minor-Object Science  on 31 August '07

• "The effect of a planet on the dust distribution in a 3D protoplanetary disk" by Fouchet, L. with S.T. Maddison, J.-F. Gonzalez & J.R. Murray, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 31 Aug. - Quote: "We investigate the behaviour of dust in protoplanetary disks under the action of gas drag in the presence of a planet. Our goal is twofold: to determine the spatial distribution of dust depending on grain size and planet mass, and therefore to provide a framework for interpretation of coming observations and future studies of planetesimal growth." {permalink}
• "A Submillimeter View of Circumstellar Dust Disks in rho Ophiuchus" by Andrews, Sean M. with Jonathan P. Williams, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 31 Aug. - Quote: "We present new multiwavelength submillimeter continuum measurements of the circumstellar dust around 48 young stars in the rho Ophiuchus dark clouds. Supplemented with previous 1.3 mm observations of an additional 99 objects from the literature, the statistical distributions of disk masses and submillimeter colors are calculated and compared to those in the Taurus-Auriga region... There is some circumstantial evidence that disk masses inferred from submillimeter emission may be under-estimated by up to an order of magnitude." {permalink}
• "The First Direct Distance and Luminosity Determination for a Self-Luminous Giant Exoplanet: The Trigonometric Parallax to 2MASS1207334-393243Ab" by Biller, Beth with Laird Close, abstract & PDF at arXiv.org 31 Aug. - Quote: "2MASS 1207Ab is an M8 brown dwarf with a mid to late L type planetary mass companion... Recent observations of spectral variability have uncovered clear signs of disk accretion and outflow, constraining the age of the system to <10 Myr." {permalink}

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NEOCP Activity  on 31 August '07

The MPC's NEO Confirmation Page is currently empty

The NEOCP is currently empty and hasn't been noted by Major News as active yet today (last checked at 2354 UTC).

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New MPECs  on 31 August '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-Q45 time-stamped "06:05 UT" - Daily Orbit Update - see below
• MPEC 2007-Q46 time-stamped "13:01 UT" - Comet 19P/Borrelly

MPEC 2007-Q46 - "13:01 UT" - Comet 19P/Borrelly

• 0019P   19P/Borrelly (Q=5.873 AU, TP=1994 Nov. 1.49463 TT) from Cerro Paranal (Aug. 19.06p2) and Australian Natl. Univ. 1m telescope (ANU 1m) (Aug. 31.44-45p3)

<< DOU on 31 Aug. '07 >>  MPEC 2007-Q45 - "06:05 UT" - Daily Orbit Update

• K07P11U   2007 PU11 (Q=4.384 AU, arc=3 opp, H=16.3 ~1.86 km) from Greiner Research Obs. (Aug. 30.19-20p7)
• K07P08E   2007 PE8 (arc=108 days, H=19.5 ~426m) from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) (May 14.63-65p3, 22.56-58p3 & 27.52-55p3) and Greiner Research Obs. (Aug. 30.16-17p8)
• K07L32R   2007 LR32 (arc=96 days, H=17.2 ~1.23 km) from Santa Mama Obs. (Aug. 29.85-88p8)
• K07L00V   2007 LV (arc=2 opp, H=18.0 ~851m) from SSS (May 22.65-69p4 & 22.78-82p6)
• K07K04N   2007 KN4 (Q=5.446 AU, arc=2 opp, H=17.0 ~1.35 km) from the Spacewatch 0.9m telescope (1995 Nov. 23.31-36p3)
• K07D08K   2007 DK8 (arc=190 days, H=19.0 ~537m) from Spacewatch 0.9m (Aug. 24.39-42p3)
• K04O11T   2004 OT11 (arc=3 opp, H=17.3 ~1.17 km) from Santa Mama Obs. (Aug. 29.79-84p8)
• 66251   66251 1999 GJ2 from Spacewatch 0.9m (Aug. 24.44-47p3)

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Observers  on 31 August '07

Six observing facilities appear in today's MPECs.

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Impact Risk Monitoring  on 31 August '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 31 August '07

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