Commissioning of systems on the Vera Rubin Observatory continues. Tuning of the active optics systems (NOT adaptive optics) continues. This past week, both Alpha Centauri and Earth’s natural satellite became visible. These bright objects served as crude calibrators, allowing tests… Read More »Vera Rubin Update (Mid-May 2025)
The June 2025 issue of Icarus (vol. 433) is a good one: Ribeiro de Sousa, R. Izidoro, A. Morbidelli, A. et al. Reassessing the origin and evolution of Ecliptic Comets in the Planet-9 Scenario Article 116472 .2025.116472de Luis, M. Parro, L.… Read More »Note, Paper: Asteroids A-Go-Go
Tonight, May 16 is the International Day of Light. Organized by UNESCO, SPIE, and IEEE Photonics, we celebrate light and all its wonders it brings to our lives. https://www.unesco.org/en/days/lighthttps://spie.org/community-support/international-day-of-light/idl-resourceshttps://www.dayoflight.org/https://www.lightday.org/about Let’s see… we use telescopes to study celestial objects of all sorts. Those telescopes… Read More »Day of Light, Tonight
The three issues of MNRAS (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society) for May are now out: Volume 539, Issue 1 May 2025Ali-Dib, M. Walton, C. Protoplanetary cores drove chondrule formation P. 127 staf505Anslow, R. J. Bonsor, A. Todd, Z.… Read More »Note, Paper: Bits about Bits
…speaking of SiTian… The latest issue of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (vol. 25 #4) is a special Issue: Pathfinder of the SiTian Project – Progress of Mini SiTian Huang, Y. Liu, J. Wu, H. et al. The Mini-SiTian Array: A… Read More »Note, Papers: SI on SiTian
In Acta Astronautica for Jun 2025 (vol 231): Lu, J. Shang, H. Zhang, X. Speeding up heterogeneous binary asteroid system propagation through the physics-informed neural network Page 64 .02.022Impresario, G. Zinzi, A. Amoroso, M. et al. The Italian microsatellite mission… Read More »Note, Paper: Asternbild Achtung
The new Meteoritics & Planetary Science (May – volume 60, #5) is now online: Connolly Jr, H. C. Lauretta, D. S. McCoy, T. J. et al. An overview of the petrography and petrology of particles from aggregate sample from asteroid… Read More »Note, Paper: CM On Asteroids
In Experimental Astronomy (all-digital, no physical issues) vol. 59, #3: Xiang, W. Jia, P. Li, Z. An Optimization Framework for Wide-Field Small Aperture Telescope Arrays Used in Sky Surveys 32 s10686-025-10004-0 Covering the sky requires more than one telescope: in… Read More »Note, Paper: Better Net-Tels
…see Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 It’s now Day 5 of a weeklong conference: wrapping up loose ends. Here, the less technical but no less important soft sciences. And posters; lots and lots of posters. Panel Session… Read More »2025 Planetary Defense Conference, Day 5
…see Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 And now on Day 4 of the PDC, we get to the dramatic, unlikely (and hopefully never likely in our era) part of planetary defense: mitigation. That’s action taken when the impactor has… Read More »2025 Planetary Defense Conference, Day 4