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Space News Update
- October 21, 2014 In the News
Story 1:
MRO Spies Tiny, Bright Nucleus During Comet Flyby of Mars
Story 2:
First Photos of Water Ice on Mercury Captured by NASA Spacecraft
Story 3:
Hubble Telescope Finds Potential Kuiper Belt Targets for New Horizons Pluto Mission
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
Space Calendar
NASA-TV Highlights
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week
MRO Spies Tiny, Bright Nucleus During
Comet Flyby of Mars
First Photos of Water Ice on Mercury Captured
by NASA Spacecraft
Hubble Telescope Finds Potential Kuiper Belt
Targets for New Horizons Pluto Mission
The Night Sky
Tuesday, October 21

A challenge observation: as dawn brightens on Wednesday
morning the 22nd, binoculars or a telescope may already show
Mercury below the thin crescent Moon very low in the east, as
shown here. Look about a half hour before sunrise.

Mercury is not only low but faint: a tiny crescent only magnitude
2.1. If you succeed, this may be the thinnest you ever see Mercury
as a crescent: about 10% sunlit.
Wednesday, October 22

Jupiter's moon Io fades away into eclipse by Jupiter's shadow
around 2:43 a.m. Thursday morning EDT (11:43 p.m. Wednesday
evening PDT). A small telescope is all you need to watch. Io is the
satellite just west of the planet at the time.
Thursday, October 23

A partial eclipse of the Sun happens this afternoon for most of
North America. Seen from the eastern half of the continent, the
Sun sets while the partial eclipse is still in progress. Westerners get
to see the whole thing. Eastern New England misses out.

While we're at it, here's a preview of the great total solar eclipse
that will cross the United States diagonally in less than three years:
Americans Will See Total Solar Eclipse in 2017.
Friday, October 24

As the stars come out this week, Deneb is nearly straight overhead
for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes. Brighter Vega is west of
the zenith. Altair is slightly farther from the zenith toward the
south.
Sky & Telescope
ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
Date
Visible
Max Height
Appears
Disappears
Tue Oct 21, 8:03 PM
2 min
23°
10 above NW
23 above NNW
Wed Oct 22, 7:14 PM
3 min
22°
11 above NNW
20 above NE
Thu Oct 23, 8:01 PM
2 min
44°
10 above NW
44 above NW
Fri Oct 24, 7:12 PM
4 min
46°
10 above NW
31 above E
Sat Oct 25, 6:27 PM
1 min
21°
21 above ENE
11 above E
Sat Oct 25, 8:01 PM
1 min
33°
22 above W
33 above SW
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information
MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013
NASA
NASA-TV Highlights
(all times Eastern Time Zone)
Tuesday, October 21
11 a.m. - Unberthing and Release of the SpaceX/Dragon CRS-4 Cargo Craft from the ISS (all
channels)
Wednesday, October 22
9 a.m. - Coverage of ISS Expedition 40 Russian Spacewalk # 40 (all channels)
Thursday, October 23
8:25 a.m. - ISS Expedition 41 In-Flight Event for ESA with Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst (all
channels)
1:45 p.m. - ISS Expedition 41 In-Flight Event with NASA Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore (all
channels)
Friday, October 24
6:15 p.m. - Video B-Roll of Orbital Sciences/Cygnus CRS-3 Processing (all channels)
6:45 p.m. - Coverage of the Launch of Orbital Sciences’ Antares Rocket and the Cygnus Cargo
Ship to the ISS (Launch scheduled at 7:52 p.m. ET) (all channels)
9:30 p.m. - Orbital Sciences/Cygnus CRS-3 Post-Launch News Conference – WFF (all channels)
Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website
Space Calendar

Oct 21 - Express AM-6 Proton M-Briz M Launch

Oct 21 - Orionids Meteor Shower Peak

Oct 21 - Comet P/2014 M4 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (1.429 AU)

Oct 21 - Comet C/2014 R4 (Gibbs) Perihelion (1.813 AU)

Oct 21 - Comet 286P/Christensen At Opposition (2.146 AU)

Oct 21 - Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak At Opposition (4.116 AU)

Oct 21 - Comet PANSTARRS (C/2014 S1) Closest Approach To Earth (7.611 AU)

Oct 21 - Asteroid 2010 VQ Near-Earth Flyby (0.027 AU)

Oct 21 - Asteroid 2340 Hathor Near-Earth Flyby (0.048 AU)

Oct 21 - Asteroid 10377 Kilimanjaro Closest Approach To Earth (1.710 AU)

Oct 21 - Asteroid 3834 Zappafrank Closest Approach To Earth (2.027 AU)

Oct 21 - Asteroid 5405 Neverland Closest Approach To Earth (2.030 AU)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 3674 Erbisbuhl Occults HIP 42472 (6.7 Magnitude Star)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 2014 RQ17 Near-Earth Flyby (0.031 AU)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 3066 McFadden Closest Approach To Earth (1.258 AU)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 2933 Amber Closest Approach To Earth (1.543 AU)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 1279 Uganda Closest Approach To Earth (1.571 AU)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 2521 Heidi Closest Approach To Earth (2.005 AU)

Oct 22 - Asteroid 8373 Stephengould Closest Approach To Earth (3.156 AU)

Oct 23 - Partial Solar Eclipse, Visible from Eastern United States

Oct 23 - Comet PANSTARRS (C/2014 S1) At Opposition (7.611 AU)

Oct 23 - Asteroid 2014 SC324 Near-Earth Flyby (0.003 AU)

Oct 24 -Cygnus CRS Orb-3/ Flock-1d 1-26/ Arkyd-3 Antares-130 Launch (International
Space Station)

Oct 24 - Chang'e 5 CZ-3Z Launch (China Moon Orbiter)

Oct 24 - Meridian 7 Soyuz 2-1A-Fregat Launch

Oct 24 - Cassini, Titan Flyby
JPL Space Calendar
New Technique Puts Exoplanets on the Scale
Food for Thought
Milky Way Ransacks Nearby Dwarf Galaxies,
Stripping All Traces of Star-Forming Gas
Space Image of the Week
Rosetta's Selfie
Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA