Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Jul 2

================================================== ======================

* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - July 2, 2004 * * *

================================================== ======================

Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. (If the links don't work, just
manually type the URLs into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

================================================== ======================

CASSINI'S PICTURE-PERFECT ARRIVAL

Scientists, engineers, and space enthusiasts alike had much to celebrate this
week: the Cassini orbiter, with its Huygens probe riding piggyback, is safely
orbiting Saturn. In the process, the craft's cameras captured the closest-ever
look at the planet's icy rings. The procedure went just as planned, says
Cassini flight director Julie Webster (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). The
spacecraft "couldn't have performed any better."

Saturn orbit insertion, or SOI in NASA parlance, was hardly a simple task....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1291_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SATURN'S MAGNETIC MYSTERIES

The first 61 pictures relayed by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft after reaching
Saturn show that there is much scientists don't understand about the planet's
dazzling rings. But no less surprising were early returns from Saturn's vast
magnetosphere, the invisible bubble of magnetic fields, electric currents, and
trapped radiation far larger than the ringed planet itself....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1292_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Happy Anniversary, FUSE

June 24th marked the fifth birthday for the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic
Explorer (FUSE). Since the craft launched in 1999 FUSE astronomers have used
the satellite's four far-ultraviolet telescopes to produce revolutionary
science. Some of the highlights include the first-ever observations of
molecular nitrogen outside the solar system, an analysis of the molecular
hydrogen in the Martian atmosphere, and the discovery of a hot gas halo
surrounding the Milky Way.

A New Step for SETI@home

A half million amateur hunters for alien civilizations are currently running
the SETI@home software -- which uses your computer's idle time to sift through
cosmic noise from the Arecibo radio telescope for faint, artificial signals
among the stars. Launched five years ago, SETI@home is now broadening its scope
to become a platform for other "distributed computing" projects, such as those
that use volunteers' computers to crunch data in molecular biology, climate
modeling, and mathematics. The new software is named BOINC, the Berkeley Open
Infrastructure for Network Computing. It will give SETI@home itself the
flexibility to run additional searches using other radio telescopes and
analysis strategies. Current
SETI@home users will eventually need to switch to BOINC.

The change will also resolve an embarrassment that has dogged SETI@home for all
its life: the project has attracted so many volunteers that most of them are
given needless duplicate make-work. BOINC will steer excess volunteers toward
other projects instead.

Phoebe Came in from the Cold

Still ecstatic from Cassini's close flyby of Saturn's moon Phoebe on June 11th,
mission scientists have started poring over other data obtained by the
spacecraft. New insight into the battered moon's character has come from a
determination of its average density: at 1.6 grams per cubic centimeter, Phoebe
must be a mixture of rock and ice in roughly equal amounts. Spectra from
Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) also show the surface
to be a patchwork of water ice, frozen carbon dioxide, possibly clays, and
unidentified organic compounds. Other large satellites in Saturn's system, such
as Mimas, Tethys, and Rhea, also have compositions dominated by water ice, but
VIMS team leader Robert H. Brown notes that only Phoebe shows a carbon-dioxide
signature. Consequently it is definitely not a captured asteroid but instead is
more akin to the cometary bodies that now populate the distant Kuiper Belt.

Amateur Occultation Data Reveal Double Asteroid

Only four observers, all using video recorders, saw asteroid 302 Clarissa pass
in front of a 10th-magnitude star on the night of June 24th. But that was
enough to reveal at least two surprises, reports David Dunham, head of the
International Occultation Timing Association. His preliminary assessment
suggests that Clarissa is about 64 kilometers long -- nearly twice its assumed
diameter of 38 km. More importantly, Phil Dombrowski (Glastonbury, Connecticut)
recorded a 0.25-second-long disappearance hundreds of kilometers from
Clarissa's center. Instead, Dunham thinks it's likely due to a companion
satellite perhaps 5 or 6 km across. He notes that Brad Timerton, watching
closer to the occultation's centerline from Newark, New York, recorded a miss,
indicating a gap between the two bodies. Of the 27 confirmed binary asteroids,
none have been discovered during an occultation; Dombrowski's observation, if
it holds up, would become the first.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1288_1.asp

================================================== ======================

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Venus is coming into view low in the glow of dawn. Look for it above the
east-northeast horizon about 45 to 60 minutes before sunrise.
* Orange Antares brightened unexpectedly in July 2000 and has remained bright
ever since, with fluctuations. It is now high in the south.
* Last-quarter Moon on Friday, July 9th (exact at 3:34 a.m. EDT).

For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/

================================================== ======================

SHOOT THE SKY (Advertisement)

Learn to astro image like a pro!

Astrophotography for the Amateur, 2nd Edition
by Michael A. Covington
http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=322

The New CCD Astronomy
by Ron Wodaski
http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=76

Astrophotography: An Introduction to Film and Digital Imaging
by H. J. P. Arnold
http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=393

================================================== ======================

Copyright 2004 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a
free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE
magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as long as our
copyright notice is included, along with the words "used by permission." But
this bulletin may not be published in any other form without written permission
from Sky Publishing; send e-mail to or call +1
617-864-7360. More astronomy news is available on our Web site at
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

To subscribe to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin or to S&T's Skywatcher's Bulletin,
which calls attention to noteworthy celestial events, go to this address:

http://SkyandTelescope.com/shopatsky/emailsubscribe.asp

================================================== ======================

*-----------------------------------------------------*
| Stuart Goldman |
* Associate Editor *
| Sky & Telescope |
* 49 Bay State Rd. Sky & Telescope: The Essential *
| Cambridge, MA 02138 Magazine of Astronomy |
*-----------------------------------------------------*