The Last 33 Days in Astronomy

MAR – 13 – 2007 • New Outgassing Moon • One of the surprises from Cassini has been the geysers seen on Enceladus. Now it appears that a second Saturnian moon is outgassing in a similar fashion. The moon is Dione and the amount of material released is only 1/500th of the amount from Enceladus. http://skytonight.com/news/Saturns_Other_Gassy_Moon.html

MAR – 22 – 2007 • New Director for the ASP • The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has a new executive director. James Manning replaces Michael Bennett who was the E.D. for 6 years. Manning is the current head of public outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute (think Hubble) in Baltimore. Before that he was a planetarium director at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. He begins his new duties in July. http://www.astrosociety.org/news/manning.html

APR – 07 – 07 • Fifth Space Tourist Launched • Charles Simonyi, an early Microsoft employee famous to computer programmers as the creator of Hungarian notation, was sent into space along with two members of the ISS Expedition 15 crew. Simonyi has his own web blog at http://www.charlesinspace.com/ . One launch article is at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070407_exp15_postlaunch.html

APR – 10 – 2007 • STS – 117 NET 6/8/2007 • Technicians and engineers continue to repair the hail – damaged STS – 117 external fuel tank, ET – 124. Space Shuttle Program managers have targeted a launch date that is no earlier than June 8 using the repaired tank. If Atlantis launches near that date then Endeavour could launch as early August 8 with other flights in October and December. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts117/070410june/

APR – 12 – 2007 • Rare Blackhole Eclipse Sparks Interest • A blackhole at the center of NGC 1365 has recently been studied by the X – Ray telescope Chandra. A cloud of interstellar material was partially blocking the view which allowed for some unique measurements of this Active Galactic Nucleus. The accretion disk appears to have a diameter of just 7AU which is 10 times the expected size of the blackhole’s event horizon. The material that is currently in the accretion disk will probably slip inside the event horizon within 100 years. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070412_blackhole_eclipse.html

APR – 13 – 2007 • MGS Failure caused by Software • A preliminary report by an internal review board said the MGS spacecraft problem was linked to a computer error made 5 months before the Mars Global Surveyor had a battery failure. The error caused the spacecraft to expose one of two batteries to direct sunlight causing it to overheat and to eventually deplete the other battery. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/newsroom/20070413a.html