Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Dec 19

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - December 19, 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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SEEING THE UNIVERSE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

Astronomers have embarked upon a new era brimming with never-before-seen
celestial objects and new views of classic astronomical marvels. That was the
message sent to the public on December 18th as NASA released the first
scientific images from the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), now
called the Spitzer Space Telescope. As one principal investigator remarked, "We
can expect a flood of discoveries over the next five
years...."

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1129_1.asp

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MARSBOUND

At 8:31 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time on December 19, the British-built Beagle 2
Mars lander successfully separated from the European Space Agency's Mars
Express orbiter. Mars Express's Visual Monitoring Camera took an image of
Beagle 2 about two minutes after separation. The image shows Beagle 2 is just
20 meters (66 feet) from the mother ship and pulling ahead at a relative speed
of about 0.3 meter per second....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1131_1.asp

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DUST STORMS ON MARS

On December 13th Donald C. Parker of Coral Gables, Florida, acquired a series
of CCD images of Mars and noted a significant brightening in the Chryse region
of the red planet. His observation of a large regional dust storm was reported
in International Astronomical Union CIRCULAR 8256 and has been confirmed by
observations made with the Thermal Emission Spectrometer onboard the Mars
Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting Mars. The dust cloud first
appeared at the eastern end of Valles Marineris, moved southwest, and grew in
strength. As of the 15th the most intense regions of the storm extend from
Argyre Planitia west toward Solis Planum, but the dust also reaches north and
covers the eastern half of Valles Marineris....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing...cle_1127_1.asp

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THE ASTEROID AND THE PEA

Astronomers tracking asteroids in their orbits by radar have directly observed
the Yarkovsky effect -- a long-proposed force imparted on asteroids by
sunlight. The force is subtle -- in the case of minor planet 6489 Golevka, it's
the equivalent of one ounce of thrust pushing against a 0.5 kilometer, 210
million-ton tumbling "mountain...."

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1126_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Quadrantid Meteor Source Found

The last of the major annual meteor showers has finally been traced to its body
of origin. The rich Quadrantid shower, through which Earth passes every year
around January 4th, originates from a small, asteroid-like body discovered just
last year, claims meteor expert Peter Jenniskens (NASA/Ames Research Center) in
a paper submitted to the Astronomical Journal. The source is a small,
asteroid-like body just a couple of kilometers wide found in March 2003 and
designated 2003 EH1. It has an odd, high-inclination orbit that matches the
orbit of the Quadrantids when both are tracked back through several centuries
of planetary perturbations. Jenniskens estimates that the Quadrantid meteoroids
we encounter today left 2003 EH1 only about 500 years ago. The association of
2003 EH1 with the Quadrantid stream identifies it as a dead short-period comet,
much like the "asteroid" 3200 Phaethon, source of the Geminid shower.

Reaching the Masses

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, working with NASA and the Astronomical
League, has developed new free materials aimed to help bolster hundreds of
amateur astronomy clubs' continued public education and outreach. The materials
cover a variety of astronomical subjects, with an emphasis on finding planets
around other stars. Kits include sky maps, a training video on DVD, a manual of
suggested activities, and a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation (with video
clips) highlighting NASA missions that will search for extrasolar planets.

Interested clubs can receive the materials by joining the Night Sky Network.
Besides the kits, the network provides training, special opportunities for
working with NASA scientists and educators, and access to a dedicated Web site
for communicating with other participants.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1128_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* The December solstice occurs at 2:04 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on the 22nd.
* New Moon on December 23rd.
* Saturn rises during twilight in Gemini.

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 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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