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  * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - March 25, 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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HALE-BOPP: THE COMET THAT DOESN'T QUIT

Eight years after Comet Hale-Bopp dazzled the world as it passed through
the inner solar system, the dirty snowball is still detectable (about 20th
magnitude) despite being a whopping 21 astronomical units from the Sun. On
January 8th MIT astronomers Andrew S. Rivkin and Richard P. Binzel
observed the comet with Magellan Observatory's 6.5-meter Clay telescope in
Chile.

Rivkin and Binzel were aiming for a "Goldilocks" observing moment -- the
comet would have cooled off, the coma would be gone, and yet the nucleus
would still be bright enough to observe. "There's not a lot of spectra of
the nuclei of comets," says Rivkin. They are hard to capture because the
nuclei are obscured once comets develop comas. They didn't find what they
bargained for....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1486_1.asp

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EXOPLANETS: THE HEAT IS ON

For the first time ever, astronomers have detected infrared light from
objects that everyone agrees are extrasolar planets. Using the Spitzer
Space Telescope, two teams independently picked up infrared light emitted
by the "hot Jupiters" TrES-1 and HD 209458b, which transit their host
stars periodically. These observations have yielded precious information
about both planets. But they also present a mystery: why is HD 209458b
puffed up....?

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1485_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Full Moon on Friday, March 25th.
* Saturn (magnitude +0.1, in Gemini) shines brightly very high in the
southwest during evening, near Castor and Pollux -- excellently placed for
telescopic viewing.
* Jupiter (a bright magnitude -2.5, in Virgo) rises in the east around
sunset, shines highest in the south in the middle of the night, and sets
in the west around sunrise.

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

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

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