| The Asteroid/Comet Connection's daily news journal about asteroids, comets, and meteors Today's issue status: done
Cover: In the early hours last Saturday, April 24th, Pepe Manteca reported positions for five comets from Begues Observatory in southern Spain. One of them was C/2003 K4 (LINEAR), as shown in the larger image at left. He also followed this comet last year, as shown inset. See the Cometas Web 2003 K4 (LINEAR) page for larger versions of these image files. This comet will reach perihelion on October 13th after passing close to Earth's orbit (but far from Earth) on what is currently calculated to be a one-way trip around the Sun and out of the Solar System. See the JPL Orbit Viewer for more info. |
| News briefs – panel 1/1 | Major News for 1 May 2004 |
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News briefs
Western Australia fireball: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has an article from May 2nd, "Meteor lights up Perth," Western Australia, reporting that "Residents across Perth . . . from Armadale, south-east of the city, to The Vines in the north-east . . . have reported seeing a huge meteor across the north west skies . . . close to 10 o'clock AWST last night." |
| Risk monitoring - panel 1/1 | Major News for 1 May 2004 |
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The Saturday Daily Orbit Update MPEC has 2004 HZ reported from Thursday night from the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope at La Palma in the Canary Islands. This added four days to what had been a 6.67-day observation arc for this small object, which is predicted to be in view only until May 7th. Today both NEODyS and JPL cut their solution counts by about two thirds while slightly raising their overall risk ratings. The Minor Planet Center Last Observation page is showing that NEAT's Hawaiian telescope caught 2004 HK33 today, the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope in Arizona nabbed 2004 HZ this morning, and Reedy Creek Observatory in Australia, which discovered 2004 GA1, picked it up yesterday. MPEC 2004-J03 today announces 2004 HE62 as discovered and followed over a 3.86-hour period by the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) in Australia on Wednesday UT, and was confirmed yesterday with the Australian National University 1m telescope at Siding Spring, and by Reedy Creek. This is the third kilometer-size |
object discovered from Australia since April 11th. Both of the first two, 2004 GA1 and 2004 HW, have impact solutions, and now JPL has posted 2004 HE62 with two low-rated solutions. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||