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 * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - March 11, 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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THE MOST MASSIVE STARS

Astronomers have long wondered what is the upper mass limit for stars. In
recent decades, many astronomers believed that limit was somewhere in the
neighborhood of 100 to 150 solar masses for stars forming in the
modern-day universe. Stars above this mass limit should generate so much
light that the sheer pressure of their own radiation blows off enormous
amounts of mass, quickly whittling them down to 100 to 150 solar masses.
Now, astronomers have observational evidence that this thinking is largely
correct....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1476_1.asp

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HANS BETHE (1906-2005)

Hans Bethe, one of the towering figures of 20th-century astrophysics, died
on Sunday, March 6th, at his home in Ithaca, New York, at the age of 98.
Among his many awards and honors, Bethe (pronounced BAY-tuh) won the 1967
Nobel Prize in Physics for his theoretical calculations in the 1930s that
demonstrated how stars generate energy -- thus solving a mystery that had
endured for centuries.

"His discoveries are honored on the highest possible level," says
University of Illinois astronomer James B. Kaler. "He has the grandest
award to be found anywhere: the Sun itself. He taught us how it works...."

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1475_1.asp

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ROSETTA BUZZES EARTH

The night sky is full of visible Earth satellites; you can often count
half a dozen creeping across the stars in the hour after dark, just by
keeping watch with your unaided eyes. But rare indeed is the
interplanetary spacecraft that's visible from Earth.

On March 4th, following publicity by the European Space Agency (ESA), many
telescope users succeeded in spotting and tracking the ESA's Rosetta probe
as it flew by Earth....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1474_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* First-quarter Moon on Thursday, March 17th.
* Mercury (magnitude -1) is low in the west in evening twilight.
* Jupiter (magnitude -2.4, in Virgo) rises in the east around the end of
twilight and is well up in the southeast by 10 p.m. -- the brightest
"star" in the sky.

For more details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:

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

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MESSIER MADNESS (Advertisement)

Train for the Messier Marathon with help from Shop at Sky!

Deep-Sky Companions: The Messier Objects by Stephen James O'Meara
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=307

Laminated Messier Card
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=150

The Messier Objects in Color Poster
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=172

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Copyright 2005 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided
as a free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY &
TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as
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