Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Dec 1

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - December 1, 2005 * * *

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

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ICE VOLCANOES CAPTURED

Finally astronomers have the photographic proof they've been looking
for: ice volcanoes actively erupting on Enceladus. On November 27th the
Cassini spacecraft looked back toward Saturn's icy moon and caught its
profile backlit by sunlight. In those images, several discrete plumes
tower above the 500-kilometer-wide satellite. The spray populates
Saturn's E ring with snow particles that ultimately coat many of the
planet's other satellites....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1631_1.asp

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HUBBLE DISSECTS THE CRAB

Professional astronomers got a glimpse of it 11 months ago, when the
American Astronomical Society met in San Diego, California. But the
rest of the world had to wait until Thursday to view this portrait of
the Crab Nebula. And while ground-based telescopes have been delivering
stunning images of the Crab for years, much remains unknown about this
singular supernova remnant....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1632_1.asp

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HAYABUSA HITS PAYDIRT

On Friday, November 25th, Japanese scientists and engineers gathered in
their Deep Space Control Room, awaiting confirmation that the Hayabusa
spacecraft had landed on a distant asteroid and grabbed a sample of its
dusty surface. Someone hung an embroidered amulet on one of the
computer consoles for good luck, and that gesture seemingly helped the
trouble-prone craft to succeed.

At about 7:30 a.m. Japan time, Hayabusa (Japanese for "falcon") briefly
touched down on 25143 Itokawa in a flat, relatively featureless area
informally dubbed Muses Sea. Then it quickly fired two metal pellets
into the surface, timed just 0.2 second apart, and collected some of
the dust kicked up by the impacts. Throughout the descent and sampling,
the spacecraft functioned autonomously, navigating to the surface
without intervention from controllers on Earth....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1630_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* New Moon on Thursday, December 1.
* Jupiter (magnitude -1.7, at the Virgo-Libra border) shines brightly
low in the southeast during dawn.
* Venus (magnitude -4.5, between Sagittarius and Capricornus) is the
dazzling white "Evening Star" in the southwest during and shortly after
dusk. This week Venus is the highest and brightest it will be in the
evening sky during 2005 and 2006.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing...icle_110_1.asp

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Copyright 2005 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
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e-mail to or call +1 617-864-7360. More
astronomy news is available on our Web site at
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/.

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Stuart Goldman
Associate Editor http://SkyandTelescope.com
Night Sky Magazine http://NightSkyMag.com
49 Bay State Rd.
Cambridge, MA 02138