Space News Update
- August 26, 2014 In the News
Story 1:
Rosetta: Landing Site Search Narrows
Story 2:
NASA Rainfall Satellite Out Of Fuel, but Continues to Provide Data
Story 3:
NASA Unveils Best Map Ever of Neptune's Moon Triton
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
Space Calendar
NASA-TV Highlights
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week
Rosetta: Landing Site Search Narrows
NASA Rainfall Satellite Out Of Fuel but
Continues to Provide Data
NASA Unveils Best Map Ever of Neptune's
Moon Triton
The Night Sky
Tuesday, August 26
If you're in the Earth's mid-northern latitudes,
bright Vega shines near your zenith just as
night becomes fully dark. Whenever you see
Vega most nearly straight up, you know that
Sagittarius, with its deep-sky riches, is at its
highest in the south.
Wednesday, August 27
The wide W pattern of Cassiopeia is tilting up
in the northeast after dark. Below the W's last
segment to the lower left, by a little farther
than the segment's length, look for an
enhanced spot of the Milky Way's glow if you
have a dark enough sky. Binoculars will show
this to be the Perseus Double Cluster — even
through a fair amount of light pollution.
Thursday, August 28
The Great Square of Pegasus is now well up in the east as soon as nightfall is complete. It's larger than your fist
at arm's length and currently stands on one corner. Seen from your latitude at your time, how close is the balance
to perfect?
Friday, August 29
The Moon is coming back into the evening sky. Look for the waxing crescent low in the southwest in twilight, as
shown below. Can you make out Spica twinkling beneath it? Binoculars help. Far to the upper left are Saturn and
Mars.
Sky & Telescope
ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
No sighting opportunities through Friday September 5, 2014
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information
MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013
NASA
NASA-TV Highlights
(all times Eastern Time Zone)
1:10 p.m., Wednesday, August 27 - ISS Expedition 40 In-Flight
Educational Event with the Elliot Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove,
CA and NASA Commander Steve Swanson and Flight Engineer Reid
Wiseman (all channels)
Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website
Space Calendar
Aug 26 - Kuiper Belt Object 225088 (2007 OR10) At Opposition (86.117 AU)
Aug 27 - AsiaSat 6 (Thaicom 7) Falcon 9 Launch
Aug 27 - Mars Passes 3.6 Degrees From Saturn
Aug 27 - Comet C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS) Perihelion (1.055 AU)
Aug 27 - Comet 303P/NEAT Closest Approach To Earth (1.508 AU)
Aug 27 - Asteroid 2014 QD33 Near-Earth Flyby (0.037 AU)
Aug 27 - Comet 11P/Tempel-Swift-LINEAR Perihelion (1.549 AU)
Aug 27 - Comet 231P/LINEAR-NEAT At Opposition (3.903 AU)
Aug 27 - Asteroid 7984 Marius Closest Approach To Earth (1.178 AU)
Aug 27 - Asteroid 3780 Maury Closest Approach To Earth (1.678 AU)
Aug 27 - Asteroid 5471 Tunguska Closest Approach To Earth (1.873 AU)
Aug 28 - Comet 289P/Blanpain Perihelion (0.961 AU)
Aug 28 - Comet 206P/Barnard-Boattini Perihelion (1.146 AU)
Aug 28 - Comet P/2005 L1 (McNaught) Closest Approach To Earth (2.370 AU)
Aug 28 - Asteroid 253 Mathilde Occults TYC 0017-01212-1 (12.1 Magnitude Star)
Aug 28 - Asteroid 15907 Robot Closest Approach To Earth (1.050 AU)
Aug 28 - Asteroid 2952 Lilliputia Closest Approach To Earth (1.127 AU)
Aug 28 - Asteroid 376 Geometria Closest Approach To Earth (1.173 AU)
Aug 28 - Asteroid 8249 Gershwin Closest Approach To Earth (1.722 AU)
Aug 28 - Asteroid 5281 Lindstrom Closest Approach To Earth (1.747 AU)
Aug 28 - Plutino 175113 (2004 PF115) At Opposition (40.507 AU)
Aug 28 - 5th Anniversary (2009), STS-128 Launch (Space Shuttle Discovery, Multi-Purpose Logistics Module
Leonardo)
Aug 28 - 225th Anniversary (1789), William Herschel's Discovery of Saturn Moon Enceladus
Aug 29 - Neptune At Opposition
Aug 29 - Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques) Closest Approach To Earth (0.564 AU)
JPL Space Calendar
New Technique Puts Exoplanets on the Scale
Food for Thought
Traces of One of Universe's First Stars Detected
Space Image of the Week
Arp 188 and the Tadpole's Tail
Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA; Processing & Copyright: Joachim Dietrich