The journal Acta Astronautica for Sep 2025 (vol. 234) has: Hosonuma, T. Miyabara, T. Ozaki, N. et al. Autonomous optical navigation for DESTINY*: Enhancing misalignment robustness in flyby observations with a rotating… Pgs. 117 .2025.04.023Li, Y-H. Lien, W-C. Liu, S-W. Development… Read More »Note, Paper: Whip, Slip, and Flip
A new instrument, CUBES (Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph) has just been approved for construction and eventual installation on ESO‘s VLT (Very Large Telescope). Why is this blog-able? One of the goals- an explicit goal- is to search for asteroid water:… Read More »VLT-CUBES Approved
Additional August developments for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Reprising a prior post, the 2025 Rubin Community Workshop has not only happened, but now has presentations posted online: project.lsst.org/excitement-and-collaboration-2025-rubin-community-workshop There are now more details on the status update, keynote presentation,… Read More »Vera Rubin Update (August-B)
In case you had been assuming, assume no more. Science is about data and evidence: Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arxiv.org/abs/2508.04675[Submitted on 6 Aug 2025]Water Detection in the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLASXing, Z. Oset, S. Noonan, J. et al. ATLAS… Read More »3I Dehydrating
Now for the annual Smallsat Conference (smallsat.org), hosted as always by Utah State University, August 11-13. See the overview: https://smallsat.org/conference/schedule/ https://smallsat.org/conference/keynote/https://smallsat.org/conference/flash-talks/https://smallsat.org/conference/posters/ In case you don’t see the connection: Hera is currently flying with the Milani and Juventas 6U CubeSats, to… Read More »Smallsat meeting, 2025
The submissions continue: Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arxiv.org/abs/2508.00808[Submitted on 1 Aug 2025]Santana-Ros, T. Ivanova, O. Mykhailova, S. et al. Temporal Evolution of the Third Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Spin, Color, Spectra and Dust Activity arxiv.org/abs/2508.02499[Submitted on 4 Aug 2025]Martinez-Palomera, J. Tuson,… Read More »3I Files (…cont’d…)
This week will be the International Workshop On Instrumentation for Planetary Missions for 2025.From 4-6 August, in Boulder, Colorado (UC-Boulder LASP), scientists and engineers will meet on planetary mission science instruments and other payloads. This year, there’s a big effort on… Read More »Instrumentation for Planetary Missions Workshop 2025
Early images aside, the commissioning and honing of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory continues. The project states that most things are coming along nicely, except the Atacama weather- observing had to stop due to the Austral Winter not cooperating. Oh… Read More »Vera Rubin Update (Aug 2025)
There’s already an August Cometary Science Newsletter, of general (not necessarily comet science) interest. It has one agenda item. Like the IRTF (NASA Infrared Telescope Facility), the NOIRLab Gemini telescopes are surveying their user base for 2025. Those Gemini astronomers… Read More »Cometary Science Newsletter, Aug
We’re due for a PSJ (Planetary Science Journal) (2025- vol. 6) update- way overdue, apparently: Helfenstein, P. Verbiscer, A. J. On Error Estimates for Hapke Photometric Model Parameters from Disk-integrated Phase Curves of Airless Planetary Bodies 144 adcd5dLee, A. Kavelaars, J. J.… Read More »Note, Paper: PSJ Ten Ways