The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs   meteor news + bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring – NEODyS has posted 2004 LB

Cover: Prepared FITS frames of comet C/2003 K4 (LINEAR) made late on June 8th by Pepe Manteca at Begues Observatory in Spain were provided to A/CC. A FITS utility in development here was used to process the first frame to hold bright detail in the coma and dust tail (inset image). And the first two frames were run through that utility to boost the part of the grayscale range occupied by the comet's dim ion tail. Contrast was adjusted further in Photoshop (globally, not selectively), and the pair were merged to become the main image at left. For another view of this comet, see the cover yesterday.

Meteor news:  There is a report today at New Zealand's Hawke's Bay Today, "Mysterious blast rocks Wairoa." It "shook windows" at 3:40am today, and there are reports that "the whole sky" lit up.

Chemical & Engineering News has a brief item today telling that "seven diamino acids" have been identified in the Murchison meteorite. Diamino acids "are the backbone of peptide nucleic acid materials thought to have preceded both RNA and DNA in early life."

Sandia Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico has posted a movie of a bright meteor flying toward the nourthwest at 4:15am MDT today (470Kb).

Bits & pieces:  MPEC 2004-L17 reports today that Reiner Stoss has located the large distant object 2004 GV9 (see April 14th report) in Digital Sky Survey (DSS) images from the U.K. 1.2m Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring in Australia from 18 March 1993 and also twice each in the years 1994 and 1997. The MPEC shows that he also participated in new observations from the Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca (OAM) made four times in April, once in May, and last night.

Gemini Observatory has a news release from yesterday telling about coating the 8m Gemini South primary and secondary mirrors with silver instead of the usual aluminum, a first for a telescope of its size. The process is required because the twin Gemini telescopes are "optimized for viewing objects in both optical and infrared wavelengths," and the result "should remain highly reflective and usable for at least a year between recoatings."

Risk monitoring 10 June

The Thursday Daily Orbit Update MPEC has observations of 2004 LB from yesterday morning UT from its discoverer, LONEOS, and from Tenagra II Observatory, both in Arizona. Today NEODyS posted this object with eight low-rated impact solutions, while JPL slightly lowered its low overall risk ratings and cut its solution count from five to four.