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  * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - May 6, 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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MARS POLAR LANDER FOUND AT LAST?

In December 1999 NASA's Mars Polar Lander (MPL) was supposed to touch down
near the red planet's south pole. But shortly after it entered the Martian
atmosphere, the spacecraft disappeared without a trace. Only now, more
than five years later, do scientists think they may have finally located
the lander's wreckage and confirmed what went wrong with the mission. The
full report, by planetary scientist Michael C. Malin (Malin Space Science
Systems), appears in the July 2005 issue of SKY & TELESCOPE, now in
press....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1509_1.asp

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"FIRST EXOPLANET" IMAGE CONFIRMED

A team of European and American astronomers has confirmed the first image
of a planetary-mass object outside the solar system. This object orbits
not a star, however, but a brown dwarf known as 2M 1207. The companion's
estimated mass is about 5 times that of Jupiter....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1508_1.asp

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12 NEW SATURNIAN MOONS

There was once a time when the discovery of a single new moon was a
landmark event in astronomy. Now, satellites come by the dozen. David
Jewitt and Jan Kleyna (University of Hawaii) and Scott Sheppard (Carnegie
Institution of Washington) reported 12 new Saturnian moons...

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1510_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* New Moon on Sunday, May 8th.
* Skywatchers in the western United States have a chance to catch an
extremely young, thin crescent Moon on Sunday evening.
* The first-discovered asteroid, 1 Ceres, is at opposition. This week it
shines at 7th magnitude as it passes a degree or two northwest of Beta
Librae. Find it using binoculars or a low-power telescope and the finder
chart in the May SKY & TELESCOPE, page 56.
* Comet Tempel 1 -- which NASA's Deep Impact mission will blast with a
projectile on the evening of July 3rd -- can be found this week near
Epsilon Virginis using the chart in the June SKY & TELESCOPE, page 68.

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

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Copyright 2005 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided
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