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By Daniel Fischer Every page present in Europe & the U.S.!
| Ahead | Awards 
The latest issue!
| A German companion! (SuW version) Current mission news: MGS (latest pictures!) + Cassini + Galileo + NEAR |
by Sky & Telescope magazine in its Feb. 2001 issue (p. 71-75). |
Plus NASA's, JPL's, FT's, the BBC's, the NYT's, SC's and SPIEGEL's top stories of 2000. And astronomy popularizer Patrick Moore will get a knighthood by the Queen: BBC.
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Based on the Space Calendar, Florida Today's Launch Forecast and PH's Astro Almanach.
Jan. 1 | The new millennium, century & decade begin, as not only math purists have noticed by now - it just is so, period. | Georgian.net with all the details | ||||||||
Jan. 9 | Total Eclipse of the Moon, best visible in Europe and Africa. | Homepage, Webcasts, S&T article | ||||||||
Jan. 15 | Stardust flies by the Earth, in order to reach comet Wild 2 in 2004. | Homepage | ||||||||
Jan. 22 | Mercury passes 0.4 degrees from Uranus in the evening sky; use binoculars! | |||||||||
Feb. 12 | NEAR lands on Eros in a semi-soft operation the s/c might actually survive. | Homepage and a Space.com article | ||||||||
Feb. 21 | Mars just 3 arc minutes South of Beta Scorpii - hard to observe in the morning sky. | |||||||||
Feb. 26-28 | Mir is deorbited, with all debris headed for the Pacific. | Sydney Morning Herald story | ||||||||
March 28 | Launch of HESSI on a Pegasus: a small NASA satellite to study solar flares. | Homepage | ||||||||
March 30 | Venus in conjunction with the Sun, angular diameter one full arc minute. On March 27 and 28 it could be both Morning Star and Evening Star for Northern hemisphere observers. | |||||||||
April 7 | Launch of 2001 Mars Odyssey, the Mars Surveyor 2001 orbiter, on a Delta 2 rocket. | Homepage | ||||||||
April 13 | Moon just 0.5 degrees North of Mars. | |||||||||
April 21 | Launch of the Jason and TIMED satellites, for studies of ocean circulation and the Earth's upper atmosphere (Delta 2). | Homepages of Jason and TIMED | ||||||||
April 30 | Launch of a manned Soyuz rocket to the ISS - which may carry the first visiting guest. (No other ISS-related missions are listed here.) | Space.com article | ||||||||
May 23 | Launch of the OrbView-4 Earth imaging and the QuikTOMS ozone monitoring satellites on a Taurus rocket. | QuikTOMS and TOMS homepages | ||||||||
June 4 | Pluto at opposition - by this time all the proposals for a Pluto fly by mission must long have reached NASA's desk. | CM # 213, a SpaceRef article and the AO | ||||||||
June 6 | Launch of the Genesis spacecraft on a Delta 2 - the first solar wind sample return mission (other than the collectors that the Apollo astronauts opened on the Moon). | Homepage | ||||||||
June 11 | Launch of the ProSEDS experiment (a 5 kilometer conducting wire), together with a GPS satellite (Delta 2). | Homepage | ||||||||
June 13 | Mars at opposition, with 20 arc seconds diameter, but a very Southern declination - thus best observed from down under. | |||||||||
June 21 | Total Eclipse of the Sun in Africa (and the Moon occults Jupiter). | Homepage and travel information for Zambia | ||||||||
June 23 | Launch of the two GRACE satellites, to map the Earth's gravity fields by making accurate measurements of the distance between them, on a Rockot | Homepage | ||||||||
June 30 | Launch of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) cosmology satellite. | Homepage | ||||||||
July 7 | Asteroid (1) Ceres in opposition - it was discovered 200 1/2 years ago then. | NEO News article | ||||||||
July 12 | Launch of Aqua alias EOS-PM, the next big EOS satellite (Delta 2). | Homepage | ||||||||
July 13 | Mercury passes 1.2 degrees from Jupiter. | |||||||||
July 18 | "Best planet line-up" of the year in the morning skies: Mercury, Jupiter, the lunar crescent, Venus and Saturn close together. | |||||||||
July 30 | Neptune at opposition; on July 20 it's only 5 arc minutes South of Theta Cap. | |||||||||
Aug. 6 | Venus only 1.2 degrees from Jupiter, in the morning sky. | |||||||||
Aug. 15 | Uranus at opposition. | |||||||||
Aug. 31 | Launch of PICOSAT and another Starshine, a satellite with countless mirrors, on an Athena 1. | |||||||||
Sept. 12 | Moon occults Jupiter - that might be observable telescopically in Europe's afternoon sky. | |||||||||
Sept. 22 | Deep Space 1 flies by comet Borrelly in several 1000 km distance. | Homepage and CM # 152 (story 10) | ||||||||
Oct. 13 | Ulysses reaches the maximum Northern latitude of 80.2 degrees. | Homepage | ||||||||
Oct. 20 | 2001 Mars Odyssey enters Mars orbit and begins aerobraking. | Homepage | ||||||||
Nov. 1 | HST Servicing Mission 3B, during which the telescope gets a new powerful camera and new solar arrays. | Homepage of the ACS camera | ||||||||
Nov. 18 | Possible large Leonids meteor storm visible in the Far East. | Asher and McNaught pages, CM # 211 | ||||||||
Dec. 2
Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) closest to Earth (0.32 AU) - could be a
naked-eye object.
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Ephemeris,
NearEarth.net,
MeteorObs articles
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| Dec. 3
Saturn at opposition.
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| Dec. 14
Annular eclipse of the Sun, largely over water but also crossing Costa Rica.
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Map
and
details
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| Dec. 15
Launch of ICESat and CATSAT, the Ice, Cloud & Land Elevation
Satellite and the student-built Cooperative Astrophysics & Technology
Satellite (Delta 2).
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Homepages of ICESat and
CATSAT
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Cassini back at work, passing JupiterFully operational, the Cassini spacecraft has passed its closest approach (9.7 Mio. km) to Jupiter on Dec. 30 at 10:12 UTC. Already on Dec. 22 the three reaction wheels for controlling its orientation had been put back in operation, since test results on that system were encouraging, and on Dec. 28 the full scientific program had resumed. An apparent drag on one of the wheels had triggered an automatic changeover on Dec. 17 to a different method of controlling the spacecraft's attitude, one that uses small hydrazine-fueled thrusters - science studies that required pointing had been suspended Dec. 19 to conserve hydrazine for Cassini's main mission at Saturn. Scientific studies that do not require pointing, such as measurements of magnetic fields, had continued all the time, and the actual Jupiter flyby and gravity assist was never compromised as Cassini was already targeted precisely.The craft's four reaction wheels were tested at high speeds Dec. 19 and at slower speeds Dec. 20: "The results were all normal," says Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager at JPL. "If we had just seen results from these tests and nothing earlier, we wouldn't have any concern." A probable cause of the friction that temporarily increased the amount of force needed to turn reaction wheel number two is prolonged operation at relatively low speeds, which may have reduced lubrication in the bearings. Running the wheel at higher speeds in tests later may have restored the distribution of the lubricant. "That's our leading theory, but we may never know for sure," says Mitchell. As a precaution, Cassini's flight team plans to develop operational procedures for the reaction wheels that will avoid low-speed operations for any significant amount of time. |
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Galileo passes Ganymede, Jupiter; camera might have suffered damageThe Galileo spacecraft has passed through the highest radiation environment it will experience in its current orbit of Jupiter, flying within about 500,000 kilometers of the cloud tops at 3:26 UTC Dec. 29, following a flyby of Ganymede the day before. Exposure to Jupiter's intense radiation caused two effects, an alarm received from Galileo's camera system, and a computer reset of the non-spinning portion of the spacecraft - the computer reset was handled properly by onboard software responses, and mission engineers are investigating the out-of-the-ordinary measurement that triggered the camera alarm. Images from the camera are still being recorded, and until the first of those images are transmitted to Earth in February, there is no knowing whether this is a situation that is impairing the images. |
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Extremely distant starburst galaxy found in the Hubble Deep Field SouthObservations with the Australia Telescope, the most advanced radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, show that a faint red dot in the Hubble image, dubbed 'source c', is a very unusual object. The colours of its light suggest that it lies between five and eleven billion light-years away (it's too faint to get a spectrum and redshift, even with the VLT). The galaxy turns out to be the most extreme example of a class of objects in the Hubble fields which are very faint in visible light but quite bright at radio wavelengths: galaxies that are absolutely fizzing with star formation, a hundred times more active than even the most frenzied star-forming galaxy in today's Universe. These galaxies might be very common, even outnumbering all the distant galaxies that astronomers had seen before: If that's the case, it would push back the epoch of maximum star formation (see also Update # 200 lead) by a long way. |
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Concern over Mir remote operation after 20 hr blackoutRussia's flight controllers were already fearing that their control of the Mir space station was gone for good, but after 20 hours of silence connections were reestablished on Dec. 26 - since then only minor glitches have occurred, and a report about a new loss of communications is apparently false. Why exactly the on-board computer had shut down on the 25th is not clear - probably the primary cause was a loss of power due to improperly oriented solar arrays.A cosmonaut crew is on stand-by to rescue the station and to prepare it for its controlled reentry in February, but so far this delicate operation will go ahead as planned, i.e. using only an unmanned Progress transporter (to be launched on Jan. 10). Meanwhile the one-time Mir visitor Dennis Tito has paid his full ticket price for a Soyuz launch - which, in all likelyhood, will go to the ISS in April. "From everything I understand as of today, this has now been OK'd by the Russian Space Agency," Tito claims.
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The last solar eclipse of the 2nd millenniumwas only partial (see head of Update # 212) but widely observed in North America on X-mas day: pictures by Pauer (plus a report), P. Harrington, B. Kramer, F. Murphy, T. Saker, B. Yen, the scene from space, nice picture galleries from SpaceWeather and S&T, collected reports and coverage by CNN, NYT, BBC, HC, AP, Space.com, SPIEGEL. Monitoring the solar maximum with many spacecraft: Science@NASA.With the 1st lunar crescent sighting after the eclipse Ramadan has ended: JAS page. The next attraction is the lunar eclipse of Jan. 9, this time best seen from Europe: Homepage, SPIEGEL, RP. ACC calls for observing the real turn of the millennium: Reuters [ CNN]. Here is, for the last time, why - and see also Update # 165 last story and a somewhat different view :-). Some deep thoughts about the Universe at the turn of the millennia: APOD and Update # 134 last story! A letter from the year 3001 with a decidedly positive view of the next 1000 years: Sydney Morning Herald. And some stories on the reality of 2001 vs. the movie (see also Update # 78 bottom and USN&WR) from CNN (5 parts), BBC ( other story), ABC, the NYT, the Bergen Record, the Cincy Post, Wired, Fox News, Space.com, Newsweek and others (plus some comments). Ursid 'outburst' reaches only 50 meteors per hourThe predicted outburst of the Ursid meteors on Dec. 22 hasn't lived up to expectations, with only about 50 meteors seen per hour - but that there was an enhancement at all is already being celebrated as a success: IMO Shower Circular, DMS special page with tons of data, yet another analysis, NearEarth.net. And what the modellers say: first impressions, a report and an early release of sodium in the meteors, just like in the Leonids.Previews of the Quadrantids - that were expected to peak on Jan. 3 at 12:00 UTC - by Science@NASA, the SPIEGEL and CNN. And a Leonids Australia 2001 page with lots of material. Meanwhile an apparent webcam picture of a fireball has turned out to be just a lens glint - duh! |
A naked-eye comet one year from now?An 18th magnitude "asteroid" first detected by the LINEAR Telescope on Nov. 16th, but later shown to be a distant comet, could become a naked-eye object in November and December 2001 - an estimate based on its current brightness suggests that it could reach about magnitude 4.5 by late Nov., but could do either even better or far worse: MPEC 2000-Y20, IAUC # 7546, a NearEarth.net article and an opposing view.Recent pictures of moderately bright comets by G. Rhemann: 41P (discussed also in IAUC # 7543 and NearEarth.net) and 1999 T1 (discussed in a Japanese page). Biggest KBO found on old plates - by German amateursTwo German amateur astronomers have located images of the biggest known Kuiper Belt Object 2000 WR106 (see Update # 211 story 1 sidebar) on several Palomar plates from 1954 to 1997, dramatically improving the orbit of the 20th mag. object now known to be about 900 km in size: special page, MPEC Y45, IAUC # 7554, CCNet item 4.NEAR "landing" approved - controllers hope to fire spacecraft engines just prior to hitting Eros on Feb. 12, perhaps allowing NEAR to briefly bounce off, relay last-minute science data, then plop itself down at a final resting spot: Space.com. 200 years ago the first asteroid was discovered in Sicily - something to party about: NEO News. Plus the BBC and AFP on the Earth passage of asteroid 2000 YA. First Light for Subaru's Adaptive Optics!The Japanese 8-meter telescope in Hawaii can now provide an image quality close to the theoretical limit, thanks to a curvature sensor for atmospheric turbulence and a bimorph deformable mirror to compensate: Press Release.Russian Cyclone rocket failsand 6 satellites don't make it into orbit on Dec. 27 - an unspecified failure in the rocket's third stage is apparently to blame: SC [ earlier], SPIEGEL [earlier], AvNow, BBC, AFP, CNN, RP.Contact restored with new amateur radio satellite after 2 weeks of silence: Spacefl. Now. Another Iridium satellite comes home, the derelict Iridium 85 spacecraft: Space.com. |
All other historical issues can be found in the Archive.
The U.S. site of this Cosmic Mirror has been visited
since it was issued (the German site has no counter).
Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer
(send me a mail to [email protected]!), Skyweek
