Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Jul 11

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