The Last Month in Astronomy

OCT-09-2009 • Europa’s young surface • Professor Richard Greenburg of the University of Arizona says that the surface of Europa may be only 50 million years old. This also makes it likely that the oceans below the surface have a lot of oxygen. In fact, it may have more oxygen than the oceans on Earth. Just to top it off, the production of oxygen was probably delayed just as it was on Earth. This delay is important because it slowed biological processes so that life could evolve before having to deal with the effects of high rates of oxidation. http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=8706

OCT-07-2009 • Apophis recalculated • The odds that asteroid Apophis will hit Earth in 2036 have plummeted. Instead of one chance in 45,000 the odds are now 1 in 250,000. That’s the result of new orbital calculations by JPL. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-151

OCT-02-2009 • Herschel Showing Off • The Herschel Observation is delivering amazing pictures of star forming regions. These regions are generally considered to be “dark” but in the infrared the glow is showing more cold and turbulent material than was previously believed to be the case. Herschel is still in an early performance verification phase but a few scientific measurements have been made. http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2328

OCT-01-2009 • Messenger 3rd flyby • The Messenger spacecraft made it’s third flyby of Mercury. Unfortunately, during the approach it suffered a power glitch which caused it to go into safe mode. Observations made just before closest approach were transmitted but many planned images were not taken. Messenger enters into orbit around Mercury March 2011. The circumstances around the power problem are not expected to occur again. http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/4728

SEP-29-2009 • LCROSS changes aim • The LCROSS mission has decided to change targets from Cabeus A to Cabeus (proper). The change was based on new information pointing to areas that have higher hydrogen concentrations. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/features/2009/LCROSS_new_crater.html

SEP-24-2009 • Water Everywhere • Do you ever get the feeling that astronomers are H2O obsessed? It seems like water is found everywhere, it’s just a matter of doing the right kind of detections. On Mars, a recent meteorite hit uncovered ice. After 3 months, the resultant crater shows that the ice has disappeared. On the moon, three different spacecraft have found water molecules in the polar region. http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-147 http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-148