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

Today's issue status: done

• Meteor news – New Zealand event & more
• News briefs – big PHO, Phoebe flyby + bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring

Cover: Last night, Pepe Manteca at Begues Observatory in Spain caught 2004 LB, the only object under current observation that has impact solutions (all low rated, see below). North is up and east is left in this enlarged stacked image, in which stars appear as long "strings of beads."

New Zealand event:  As A/CC noted yesterday, an unexplained morning "blast" was reported from Wairoa, New Zealand. Hawke's Bay Today has a follow-up report today. A medical flight nurse, who was "above the ocean about 15km south east of Wairoa when it occurred . . . at about 3:40 am," is quoted as saying "'there were two or three orange things moving through the sky. It lasted just a couple of seconds.' The object was 'high above us, and between us and the coast' and was travelling in a northerly direction." Stuff.co.nz has a report today that a seismology station "at Nuhaka, north of Wairoa," "recorded no tremors" at the time of the event.

Other meteor news:  A/CC has received an eyewitness account of a fireball at around 11:04pm MDT flying northward over central Wyoming state near Riverton last night. If you saw this event, or if you are aware of others who did or news sites that have posted a report, please tell us. Marco Langbroek reports that there are no notices of returning space debris that would explain this sighting.

There is news of a newly identified Canadian meteorite found by a farmer 12 years ago. The Calgary Sun reports today, "The 1.5-kg Belly River Buttes meteorite, named for the area near where it was found, is just the 15th meteorite recovered in Alberta." CBC Calgary has a report from yesterday.

Big PHO:  MPEC 2004-L31 at 2355 UT today announces an asteroid with a preliminary absolute magnitude of H=15.3, which converts by standard formula to a diameter on the order of 2.95 km. (1.83 miles). 2004 LJ1 was discovered yesterday morning by LINEAR in New Mexico and linked to LINEAR observations from May 14th. LINEAR caught it again this morning, as did La Canada Observatory in Spain and Andrushivka Observatory in the Ukraine tonight. This is the second surprise discovery of such a large NEO in two months, after 2004 JN13 (see May 18th).

Phoebe flyby:  It sure looks like a minor object. The Cassini mission has posted two images from yesterday of Saturn's outer moon, the retrograde and very dark Phoebe. Closest approach is today at 2056 UTC, 4:56 EDT.

One additional image and an animation from yesterday has been posted. The Cassini Small Moons page is one place to watch for new postings.

Bits & pieces:  IAUC 8336 has been made public about radar observation from Arecibo that found that PHO 2003 YT1 is binary, with preliminary diameter estimates of 1,000 and 180 meters/yards. See the Index for more about this object.

The SOHO comet discoveries chat page yesterday reported the 800th SOHO comet. This count includes C/2004 H6 (SWAN) (see May 28th) as SOHO-792 and three others discovered with the SWAN instrument rather than LASCO.

Risk monitoring 11 June

The Friday Daily Orbit Update MPEC has observation of 2004 LB from yesterday morning from Tenagra II Observatory in Arizona, from Begues Observatory in Spain last night (see "cover" above), and early today from Great Shefford Observatory in England. Today NEODyS and JPL both cut their counts of impact solutions for this object while also slightly raising their overall low risk ratings.