Download Where to See the Annular Solar Eclipse Online SpaceX Launch on

Space News Update
- May 18, 2012 In the News
Story 1:
Where to See the Annular Solar Eclipse Online
Story 2:
SpaceX Launch on May 19, 4:55 AM
Story 3:
NASA Lends Galaxy Evolution Explorer to Caltech
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week
Where to See the Annular Solar Eclipse
Online
SpaceX Launch on May 19, 4:55 AM
NASA Lends Galaxy Evolution Explorer to
Caltech
The Night Sky
Friday, May 18
•Arcturus is the brightest star high in the southeast these
evenings. It's the leading light of the constellation Bootes, the
Herdsman. The main stars of Bootes form a narrow, bent kite
shape extending left of Arcturus, nearly three fists at arm's
length long. Or maybe the kite is a pointy-toed shoe, with
Arcturus the tip of the toe.
Saturday, May 19
•Venus is moving lower in the west every evening as twilight
fades. It's now 2° left of much fainter Beta Tauri, which has
been descending almost in parallel with it.
Sunday, May 20
•Partial/annular eclipse of the Sun! See our article, May
20th's Annular Eclipse of the Sun
•Arcturus shines high in the southeastern sky after dark. Vega,
equally bright, shines lower in the northeast. A third of the way
from Arcturus to Vega, look for dim Corona Borealis, the
Northern Crown, with its one modestly bright star, Alphecca.
Two thirds of the way from Arcturus to Vega is the dim
Keystone of Hercules.
New Moon (exact at 7:47 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time).
Monday, May 21
•Can you pick up this month's thin crescent Moon yet? During
twilight in the Americas it's barely 24 hours old. (After all, it was
in front of the Sun yesterday afternoon!) Using binoculars, look
for it no more than a half hour after sunset well below Venus in
the west-northwest, as shown at lower right.
ISS Sighting Opportunities
For Denver:
SATELLITE
LOCAL
DURATION
DATE/TIME
(MIN)
MAX
ELEV
(DEG)
APPROACH
DEPARTURE
(DEG-DIR)
(DEG-DIR)
ISS
Fri May 18/05:08 AM
4
26
10 above SSW
21 above ESE
ISS
Sat May 19/04:16 AM
3
12
10 above SSE
11 above ESE
ISS
Sun May 20/04:56 AM
4
63
10 above SW
39 above ENE
ISS
Mon May 21/04:04 AM
3
28
23 above S
16 above E
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information
NASA-TV Highlights
May 18, Friday
4 p.m. - Replay of SpaceX/Falcon 9 Dragon Pre-Launch Briefing - HQ (All Channels)
6 p.m. – Replay of NASA Social at Kennedy Space Center, Florida – HQ (Public and Education Channels)
6 p.m. - Replay of SpaceX/Falcon 9 Dragon Pre-Launch Briefing - HQ (Media Channel)
8 p.m. – Replay of ISS Update (5/18) – HQ (All Channels)
9 p.m. - Replay of SpaceX/Falcon 9 Dragon Pre-Launch Briefing - HQ (All Channels)
10 p.m. – Replay of NASA Social at Kennedy Space Center, Florida – HQ (All Channels)
May 19, Saturday
2 a.m. - Replay of SpaceX/Falcon 9 Dragon Pre-Launch Briefing - HQ (All Channels)
3:30 a.m. - SpaceX/Falcon 9 Dragon Launch Coverage Begins (Launch scheduled at 4:55 a.m. EDT) - KSC (All
Channels)
8:30 a.m. - SpaceX/Falcon 9 Dragon Post-Launch News Conference - KSC (All Channels)
May 21, Monday
2:30 a.m. - SpaceX/Dragon Fly-Under of the ISS Coverage - JSC (All Channels)
10 a.m. - SpaceX/Dragon Mission Status Briefing - JSC (All Channels)
Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to NASA website.
Space Calendar
May 18 - Cassini, Orbital Trim Maneuver #322 (OTM-322)
May 18 - Comet C/2010 R1 (LINEAR) Perihelion (5.621 AU)
May 18 - Lecture: Faults and Folds on Mercury, Houston, Texas
May 18-20 - 2012 Bootleg Astronomy Star Party, Harmon, Illinois
May 19 -[May 18] Dragon C-2 & C-3 Falcon 9 Launch (International Space Station)
May 19 - Asteroid 433 Eros Occults 2UCAC 23131631 (11.7 Magnitude Star)
May 19 - Asteroid 2660 Wasserman Occults HIP 69564 (6.4 Magnitude Star)
May 19 - Asteroid 2010 KK37 Near-Earth Flyby (0.006 AU)
May 19 - Northern Meeting of the British Interplanetary Society, York, United Kingdom
May 19 - Keele Observatory's 50th Birthday Star Party, Keele, United Kingdom
May 19-27 - Cracow School of Theoretical Physics: Astroparticle Physics in the LHC Era, Zakopane, Poland
May 20 -[May 17] Annular Solar Eclipse, Visible From China, Japan & North America
May 20 - Cassini, Distant Flyby of Tethys, Enceladus, Daphnis, Prometheus, Pan, Methone, Pallene & Telesto
May 20 - Asteroid 2675 Tolkien Closest Approach To Earth (1.337 AU)
May 20 - Asteroid 13667 Samthurman Closest Approach To Earth (1.716 AU)
May 20-25 - ESF Research Conference: The Modern Era of Helio- and Asteroseismology, Otz Valley, near
Innsbruck, Austria
May 20-25 - Japan Geoscience Union Meeting (JpGU) 2012, Chiba City, Japan
May 20-26 - 12th Pisa Meeting on Advanced Detectors, La Biodola, Isola d'Elba, Italy
May 20-Jun 09 - Aspen Meeting Summer 2012: A Window on the Formation of the Milky Way, Aspen, Colorado
May 21 - Asteroid 29075 (1950 DA) Closest Approach To Earth (0.238 AU)
May 21 - Asteroid 63163 Jerusalem Closest Approach To Earth (1.438 AU)
May 21 - Asteroid 3252 Johnny Closest Approach To Earth (1.802 AU)
May 21 - Colloquium: The Distribution of Star-forming Regions in the Milky Way, Sydney, Australia
JPL Space Calendar
Food for Thought
The Awesome Complexity of Hypersonic Flight
Space Image of the Week
Image Credit: NASA