Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Sep 10

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - September 10, 2004 * * *

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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!

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BINARY PULSAR SPINS UP A STORM

The only known binary pulsar is giving astronomers a new perspective on the
powerful winds that stream from rapidly spinning, highly magnetized neutron
stars.

Announced shortly following its discovery in 2003 with the Parkes 64-meter
radio telescope in Australia, the double pulsar system known as J0737-3039 has
scientists wondering how two spinning neutron stars get along in rather cramped
quarters. Sited in Canis Major, the system consists of a 22-millisecond pulsar
and a 2.7-second pulsar separated by only 800,000 kilometers -- twice the
distance separating Earth from the Moon. With two extremely dense spheres (a
teaspoon of neutron-star stuff contains about as much mass as all the people on
Earth) circling one another in just 2.4 hours, the system's potential as a
relativity-testing laboratory was immediately apparent. But now, as new
observations roll in from the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, other
aspects of this tightly wound system have put Albert Einstein in the back seat
-- for the moment....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1348_1.asp

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GENESIS CRASHES TO EARTH

NASA's Genesis spacecraft returned to Earth on Wednesday morning but made a
crash landing in Utah instead of the planned capture by a precision-flying
helicopter stunt pilot.

The homecoming was proceeding as planned up through the capsule's plunge into
the atmosphere shortly before 10 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time. But as cameras
homed in on the falling capsule, the pictures revealed that neither its drogue
parachute nor parafoil had deployed. The capsule fell out of control and hit
the desert floor at an estimated 190 miles per hour. The impact cracked the
outer sample-return capsule....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1345_1.asp

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ECLIPSE CHASERS GATHER NEAR LONDON

From basic eclipse observation tips to complex solar physics, 25 presentations
fascinated the more than 100 amateur and professional attendees from 20 nations
at the 2004 Solar Eclipse Conference. The event, which was organized by Patrick
and Joanne Poitevin, was held from August 20th to 22nd at the Open University
in Milton Keynes, England....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1343_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Genesis Moved to Clean Room

Late Wednesday night scientists transported the remains of the Genesis
spacecraft from its crater at U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to a
clean room at the facility. Already crews have plucked away much of the dirt
and mud that was lodged in the capsule by the impact. The next several days
will be spent ascertaining how much science can be salvaged from the damaged
craft; the mission team reports that at least some of the fragile collection
wafers survived the crash intact. A team will also assemble to determine why
the parachute never deployed after reentry.

Cassini Spots More Moons...

In an International Astronomical Union Circular, Carolyn C. Porco (Space
Science Institute) reports the discovery by the Cassini orbiter of two new
objects orbiting Saturn. Given the temporary designations S/2004 S 3 and S/2004
S 4, the pair were spotted in the vicinity of the narrow F ring. S4 orbits
within the inner portion of the ring; S3 orbits just outside the ring but
interior to the path the moon Pandora takes. So far it is unclear if these
objects are moons or simply clumps of ring material. If moons, they are each
about 4 to 5 kilometers across. It is also unclear if S3 and S4 are in fact the
same object. There were seen in images taken 5 hours apart, and one proposed
orbital solution has them on the exact same path. More observations will
resolve these issues.

... And A New Ring Too!

Other images show a diffuse band of material sharing the same orbit as the moon
Atlas. This "ring" has the temporary designation R/2004 S 1. It lies in the
narrow region between the A and F rings.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1346_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* New Moon on Tuesday, September 14th.
* Venus (magnitude -4.2, in Cancer) is the "Morning Star" shining brightly high
in the east before and during dawn.
* Uranus and Neptune (magnitudes 6 and 8, respectively, in Aquarius and
Capricornus) are well placed in the southeast to south during evening.

For more details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Round up:

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

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Copyright 2004 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a
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*-----------------------------------------------------*
| Stuart Goldman |
* Associate Editor *
| Sky & Telescope |
* 49 Bay State Rd. Sky & Telescope: The Essential *
| Cambridge, MA 02138 Magazine of Astronomy |
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