Sky & Telescope News Bulletin - July 11, 2003

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - July 11, 2003 * * *

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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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THE OLDEST, WEIRDEST PLANET

Astronomers have determined both the mass and the tumultuous history of
the planet in the strangest planetary system yet discovered.

The world in question is located in the ancient globular star cluster M4,
which is the start of the mystery right off. Like most other globular
clusters, M4 is very poor in heavy elements (materials other than hydrogen
and helium), which are supposed to be the raw materials for starting a
planet growing. The stars in M4 contain only 1/20 the proportion of heavy
elements found in the Sun. Four years ago astronomers searched another
globular cluster (47 Tucanae) for transits of stars by planets and found
none. As a result, a lot of astronomers had begun to assume that globular
clusters are planet-free.

Secondly, the planet in M4 is the only one known that orbits not a single
star but a pair of them. And both of these stars are burned-out cinders --
a small, dense white dwarf and an even tinier, denser pulsar. They orbit
each other every 191 days a little farther apart than Mercury orbits the
Sun. The planet wheels around them both much more slowly about 40 times
farther out, at about the distance of Uranus from the Sun....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1001_1.asp

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KECK INTERFEROMETER MEASURES A FUTURE SOLAR SYSTEM

Astronomers have used the two 10-meter Keck Telescopes in Hawaii together
as a single unit to gain high-resolution data about a possible solar
system being born 450 light-years away.

Like many newborn stars in the Taurus Dark Cloud, DG Tauri shows the
infrared signs of having a protoplanetary disk of dust and gas around it.
A collaboration of 63 researchers led by Rachel Akeson (Caltech) used the
Keck Interferometer, as the combination of the two telescopes is called,
to resolve the star's infrared profile....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_996_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Second Mars Rover Launched

The second of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers -- dubbed Opportunity --
lifted off from Cape Canaveral on July 7th after more than a week of
delays. The first rover, Spirit, was launched on June 10th. Both landers
will reach Mars in January. The liftoff at 11:18 p.m. Eastern Daylight
Time came during Opportunity's second launch window of the night. The
countdown was halted with only 7 seconds left during the first attempt
after computers detected a problem with a valve. The valve was cycled
several times, satisfying flight engineers that it was working.
Opportunity's successful launch followed other numerous delays due to
weather, a failed battery, and a problem with cork insulation on the
rocket. Had it been postponed past July 15th, the next opportunity would
have been 2 years later, forced to wait until Earth and Mars reached
proper positions again.

A Plethora of Planets

A team of European astronomers recently announced the latest batch of
newly discovered extrasolar planets. With the seven new-found bodies,
astronomers have identified at least 117 planets outside our solar system
according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. The new objects were
detected by Michel Mayor as part of the Geneva Extrasolar Planet Search. A
Japanese team also recently located an additional planet -- HD 104958b --
the first to be located by a Japanese team.

Making the MOST of a Mission

The Canadian Space Agency successfully launched its first space telescope
on June 30th. The Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars mission, or
MOST, will probe the interiors of stars by tracking their tiny surface
vibrations and will attempt to directly detect extrasolar planets. It also
holds the honor of being the smallest space telescope in orbit.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1000_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Full Moon is on July 13th.
* Seen from southern Florida and many points south on morning of July
17th, the Moon will occult (cover) Mars.
* Bright Mars shines to the Moon's upper right after midnight on July
17th.

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

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

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Copyright 2003 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided
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