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 * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - July 9, 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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ETA CARINAE PLAYS PURPLE HAZE

Lately things just don't seem the same with Eta Carinae, one of our galaxy
's most amazing stars. The blue supergiant weighs in with at least 100
solar masses, and it pumps out as much energy in 6 seconds as the Sun does
in an entire year. During the 1840s the star brightened tenfold as it
explosively ejected an astonishing 5 to 15 solar masses of material to
form the surrounding Homunculus Nebula. Eta Carinae somehow managed to
survive this catastrophe, whose cause remains a mystery.

But incredible luminosity and giant eruptions are just part of the story.
Recent changes in a "purple haze" surrounding Eta Carinae offer virtual
proof that this supergiant is even more impressive than originally
thought. It isn't just one massive star, it's two....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1296_1.asp

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CASSINI PEEKS AT TITAN

On July 2nd, as the Cassini spacecraft was settling into routine
operations while orbiting Saturn, it passed Titan, the planet's largest
moon, at a distance of 339,000 kilometers (211,000 miles). That was too
far away for the mission team to consider the event an official flyby, but
close enough for the spacecraft's telephoto camera and an imaging
spectrometer to take a peek anyway.

The two instruments' snapshots show the surface in surprising detail,
despite the interference from Titan's opaque, haze-choked atmosphere.
Cassini's views reveal a tantalizing variety of straight, curved, and
round surface features, suggesting that the Mercury-size moon has been (or
is) geologically active. "We're seeing a totally alien surface," reports
Elizabeth Turtle, an imaging-team member from the University of Arizona.

Lots of subtle features are obvious even in raw, unenhanced images of
Titan, raising scientists' hopes that far more detail will become evident
during the first close brush (1,200 km away) on October 26th.....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1293_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Mount Graham Fire Stabilizes

The wildfire threatening the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) at Mount
Graham, Arizona, came within 650 meters (2,100 feet) of the observatory on
July 6th, but firefighters halted its progress by carrying out a
controlled burn ahead of the fire's path. Now the worst seems to be over,
and site manager John Ratje says observatory staffers are "very
comfortable, in a guarded sense -- it's not anything like it was a couple
days ago." The fire's closest approach was captured in a dramatic video
compiled from webcam images.

Lightning triggered two fires in the area late last month, and Mount
Graham's three observatories were first seriously threatened on July 3rd.
With the help of higher humidity and light rain, firefighters have now
established a perimeter line about 30 kilometers (20 miles) long in the vi
cinity of the observatory, which the fire has yet to cross. Observatory
staff are now waiting for the fire to burn itself out, which will likely
take another couple of weeks. "There's just no way that the team can put
the fire out," said Ratje. "All they can do is keep a defensible line and
keep the fire in a box."

Finland Joins ESO

(Continued to next message)

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