Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Jan 28

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - January 28, 2005 * * *

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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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AAVSO NAMES NEW DIRECTOR

On Friday the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) announced
Arne A. Henden as its new director. He'll step into the position left vacant by
the passing of Janet Mattei on March 22, 2004. Henden is no stranger to the
AAVSO. He has served as an AAVSO council member for six years and has submitted
thousands of observations to its International Database....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1451_1.asp

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NEWFOUND STAR SPARKS BROWN-DWARF DEBATE

In principle, weighing an astronomical object is easy: just track its orbit
around another similar body and apply basic physics to derive its mass. In
practice, however, astronomers can use this approach only rarely, and only a
handful of brown dwarfs -- substellar gas balls that can't sustain nuclear
fusion in their cores -- have been weighed this way even coarsely.
Consequently, to decide whether a pinprick of light like 2M 1207b comes from a
"planet" (with less than 1.3 percent of the Sun's mass, or 13 Jupiters), a
brown dwarf (13 to 75 Jupiters), or a star (more than 75 Jupiters), one usually
must rely on evolutionary models that relate an object's luminosity to its age
and mass.

Now, though, an international research team has determined an orbit -- and a
precise mass -- for the youngest brown dwarf yet. There's just one problem:
that object, AB Doradus C, isn't a brown dwarf after all. It has an ostensibly
stellar mass of 90 Jupiters -- up to twice what evolutionary models predict for
the 50-million-year-old object given its distance and near-infrared
magnitude....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1449_1.asp

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SENATOR VOWS TO FIGHT FOR HUBBLE

Amid new rumors that NASA plans to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), a
powerful US senator has vowed to continue fighting to keep the observatory
operating. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), one of Hubble's staunchest
supporters in Congress, wasted no time before responding to reports that NASA's
budget for fiscal year 2006, to be made public on February 7th, contains no
money to repair and upgrade the telescope.

"It is essential that we have a safe and reliable servicing mission to Hubble,"
Mikulski said in a statement distributed to reporters on Friday afternoon,
January 21st, just hours after Space.com published comments from unnamed
sources suggesting that NASA cannot afford to service Hubble again....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1448_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* This week, the early evening sky is once again dark and moonless for
observing Comet Machholz. The comet is fading a little as it moves across dim
Camelopardalis, north of Perseus and east of Cassiopeia. But it's still very
visible in binoculars, glowing at about 4th magnitude.
* For five consecutive mornings starting Saturday, telescope users can catch
Mare Orientale, the Moon's most spectacular "hidden" landform.
* Last-quarter Moon on February 2nd.

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

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance

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LAST CHANCE TO GET ECLIPSED IN APRIL! (Advertisement)

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Copyright 2005 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a
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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 *
| Sky & Telescope |
* 49 Bay State Rd. Sky & Telescope: The Essential *
| Cambridge, MA 02138 Magazine of Astronomy |
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