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
Catching up with Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ), not printing every month. In vol. 77 #4, some worthy papers: Miura, H. Yasuda, T. Thermal evolution model from cometary nuclei to asteroids considering contraction associated with ice sublimation… Read More »Note, Paper: Comet-Asteroid Matters
A quick story in the journal Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/china-sets-out-sample-unusual-near-earth-asteroid Dennis Normile China sets out to sample an unusual near-Earth asteroid .z2q2idq Normile describes the Chinese Tianwen-2 mission and its target, the Earth-resonant asteroid (469219) Kamo’oalewa. The asteroid has the unusual property… Read More »Out of Ecliptic, In Patch
…see first, second, and third posts… The COIAS program (centered around the Subaru Telescope and its HSC instrument) aims to discover asteroids swept up by the wide field of the HSC. That it does, certainly: the effort has a few… Read More »…Continuing (Comets) COIAS…
If not issues, Planetary Science Journal has unambiguous volumes. In the new vol. 6, we start with some interesting papers for a first installment: Hsieh, H. H. et al. The Volatile Composition and Activity Evolution of Main-belt Comet 358P/PANSTARRS art.… Read More »Note, Paper: Spot the Non-Dot
In Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 691 Nov. 2024: Fiore, F. Matteucci, F. Spitoni, E. et al. A census of the Sun’s ancestors and their contributions to the Solar System chemical composition A46 202451076Hajduková, M. Stober, G. Barghini, D. et al. No… Read More »Note, Paper: A&A Day
In the October Astronomy and Astrophysics (vol. 690… a big one this month): Wang, Z. Lin, H. Ye, B. et al. Near-infrared spectral behavior of space-weathered olivine with varying iron content A138 10.1051/0004-6361/202450888 Beniyama, J. Sergeyev, A. V. Tholen, D.… Read More »Note, Paper: Albedos and Athor-phys
It’s the last day of the American Astronomical Society‘s 56th annual DPS Meeting (Division for Planetary Sciences, #DPS2024). Just a little longer now. Here’s the schedule, per my highly biased blog and patch: submissions.mirasmart.com/DPS56/Itinerary/EventsAAG.aspx 405 – Small Bodies with JWST… Read More »AAS DPS meeting, four
The European Geophysical Union held their annual meeting, in Vienna, At. You may ask what a “geophysical union” has to do with this site. Since Earth accreted from asteroids, geophysics has, oh… 99.99% to do with an asteroid site. Geochemistry… Read More »EGU24 Meeting