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 * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - September 10, 2004 * * *

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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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BINARY PULSAR SPINS UP A STORM

The only known binary pulsar is giving astronomers a new perspective on
the powerful winds that stream from rapidly spinning, highly magnetized
neutron stars.

Announced shortly following its discovery in 2003 with the Parkes 64-meter
radio telescope in Australia, the double pulsar system known as J0737-3039
has scientists wondering how two spinning neutron stars get along in
rather cramped quarters. Sited in Canis Major, the system consists of a
22-millisecond pulsar and a 2.7-second pulsar separated by only 800,000
kilometers -- twice the distance separating Earth from the Moon. With two
extremely dense spheres (a teaspoon of neutron-star stuff contains about
as much mass as all the people on Earth) circling one another in just 2.4
hours, the system's potential as a relativity-testing laboratory was
immediately apparent. But now, as new observations roll in from the Green
Bank Telescope in West Virginia, other aspects of this tightly wound
system have put Albert Einstein in the back seat -- for the moment....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1348_1.asp

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GENESIS CRASHES TO EARTH

NASA's Genesis spacecraft returned to Earth on Wednesday morning but made
a crash landing in Utah instead of the planned capture by a
precision-flying helicopter stunt pilot.

The homecoming was proceeding as planned up through the capsule's plunge
into the atmosphere shortly before 10 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time. But as
cameras homed in on the falling capsule, the pictures revealed that
neither its drogue parachute nor parafoil had deployed. The capsule fell
out of control and hit the desert floor at an estimated 190 miles per
hour. The impact cracked the outer sample-return capsule....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1345_1.asp

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ECLIPSE CHASERS GATHER NEAR LONDON

From basic eclipse observation tips to complex solar physics, 25
presentations fascinated the more than 100 amateur and professional
attendees from 20 nations at the 2004 Solar Eclipse Conference. The event,
which was organized by Patrick and Joanne Poitevin, was held from August
20th to 22nd at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1343_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Genesis Moved to Clean Room

Late Wednesday night scientists transported the remains of the Genesis
spacecraft from its crater at U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to a
clean room at the facility. Already crews have plucked away much of the
dirt and mud that was lodged in the capsule by the impact. The next
several days will be spent ascertaining how much science can be salvaged
from the damaged craft; the mission team reports that at least some of the
fragile collection wafers survived the crash intact. A team will also
assemble to determine why the parachute never deployed after reentry.


Cassini Spots More Moons...

In an International Astronomical Union Circular, Carolyn C. Porco (Space
Science Institute) reports the discovery by the Cassini orbiter of two new
objects orbiting Saturn. Given the temporary designations S/2004 S 3 and
S/2004 S 4, the pair were spotted in the vicinity of the narrow F ring. S4
orbits within the inner portion of the ring; S3 orbits just outside the
ring but interior to the path the moon Pandora takes. So far it is unclear
if these objects are moons or simply clumps of ring material. If moons,
they are each about 4 to 5 kilometers across. It is also unclear if S3 and
S4 are in fact the same object. There were seen in images taken 5 hours
apart, and one proposed orbital solution has them on the exact same path.
More observations will resolve these issues.

. And A New Ring Too!
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