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  * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - April 22, 2005 * * *

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Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. (If the links don't work,
just manually type the URLs into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

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ATOM SMASHER SHEDS LIGHT ON SUPERNOVAE, BIG BANG

A new result from a powerful atom smasher may help astronomers explain how
supernovae create "heavy" chemical elements -- those that follow iron on
the periodic table. Physicists using the National Superconducting
Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University have produced
eleven nuclei of the extremely elusive isotope nickel-78, enabling them
for the first time to measure how fast it decays. NCSL's Hendrik Schatz
presented the result at this week's American Physical Society's meeting in
Tampa, Florida.

Why should astronomers concern themselves with the properties of a
short-lived nucleus that is 34 percent heavier than nickel's commonest
isotope? Because one of astronomy's Holy Grails is explaining how all the
chemical elements seen on Earth and in space came to be. And while
astronomers have known for some time that the slow-burning nuclear
furnaces of red giants and the cataclysmic explosions of supernovae can
create some heavy elements, their calculations haven't perfectly matched
the elements' observed abundances -- in part because of lingering
uncertainties about the rates at which certain atomic processes occur....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1502_1.asp

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AN EXO-ASTEROID BELT

Astronomers have enjoyed considerable success in recent years searching
for objects around other stars that are analogous to those in our solar
system. They have discovered about 160 extrasolar planets and numerous
debris disks of cold dust around young stars that suggest the presence of
colliding comets and Kuiper Belt objects. In recent times several teams
have reported evidence for warm dust generated by collisions in the
asteroid belts of other stars.

On Wednesday a team of astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope
announced the discovery of a dense asteroid belt closely orbiting a star
very similar to the Sun in age and mass....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1501_1.asp

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SUNNY NEAF WEEKEND

In what has quickly become a rite of spring, around 3,000 amateur
astronomers converged on Suffern, New York, last weekend for the 14th
annual Northeast Astronomy Forum and Telescope Show (NEAF) to see the
latest in telescope equipment, software, and accessories from more than 80
vendors. "This was the biggest turnout yet for the show," says NEAF
organizer Alan Traino....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1500_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Full Moon on Saturday April 23rd.
* The first-discovered asteroid, 1 Ceres, shines at 7th magnitude this
week as it nears its May 8th opposition. Spot it just a degree or two from
Beta Librae using binoculars or a low-power telescope along with the
finder chart in the May SKY & TELESCOPE, page 56.
* Jupiter (magnitude -2.4, in Virgo) glares brilliantly in the southeast
at dusk -- the brightest "star" in the sky. It shines highest in the south
around 11 p.m. daylight saving time.

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance

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Spotlight Print Sale! (Advertisement)

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breathtaking glimpses of our spectacular heavens.

Lagoon Nebula Close Up
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> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=409
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___
 þ OLXWin 1.00b þ I joined a bridge club.  I jump off Tuesday.

--- Maximus/2 3.01