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 * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - June 4, 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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YOUR GUIDE TO THE TRANSIT OF VENUS

On Tuesday, June 8th, the planet Venus will glide directly across the face
of the Sun. No one alive today has seen Venus "transit" the Sun -- it last
happened in 1882 -- and astronomers around the world are eagerly awaiting
the event. Only one other transit of Venus will occur this century, eight
years from now on June 6, 2012.

During this 6-hour-long event, Venus will appear as a perfectly round
black dot slowly moving across the Sun's face....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/article_1258_1.asp

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SEEING THE VERY FIRST GALAXIES

Using the largest telescopes in space and on Earth, various groups of
astronomers are shedding new light on the dawn of the cosmos. The verdict
so far: the "Dark Age" that followed the Big Bang probably lasted longer
than thought and ended only gradually, with the first stars and galaxies
lighting up the cosmos in fits and starts rather than in one nearly
simultaneous, grand opening of light. Moreover, these very first stars may
not have been as massive and brilliant as recently believed.

"To see the first stars and first galaxies has been the Holy Grail of
cosmology for a long time," comments Space Telescope Science Institute
director Steven Beckwith. "Right now, we're beginning to see this...."

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1273_1.asp

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SPITZER EXPOSES MYSTERY HOLES

In a cosmic game of hide and seek, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has
ferreted out the host galaxies of supermassive black holes in the young
universe that had escaped identification up to now. Moreover, the Spitzer
data suggest that most active galactic nuclei in the universe are shrouded
from view by thick envelopes of obscuring dust. Finally, the infrared
space observatory may have detected some of the very first galaxies to
have formed. According to Mark E. Dickinson (National Optical Astronomy
Observatory), "the performance of Spitzer is much better than originally
anticipated."

Dickinson is the principal investigator for the new observations: four
24-hour exposures with Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera of a small area in
the southern constellation Fornax....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1267_1.asp

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NASA'S O'KEEFE DETAILS HUBBLE PLANS

NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe says that plans are moving forward to
service the Hubble Space Telescope with a robotic mission by the end of
2007. In a June 1st address at the meeting of the American Astronomical
Society in Denver, Colorado, O'Keefe maintained that the space agency is
committed to extending the orbiting observatory's lifetime, and to that
end he has decided to solicit formal proposals to service Hubble without
the use of the Space Shuttle.

Addressing the 1,400 astronomers gathered in Denver, O'Keefe also detailed
what he called the "very painful" decision he made earlier this year not
to proceed with another shuttle mission to replace Hubble's failed
gyroscopes and weakening batteries....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1269_1.asp

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AMATEUR IMAGES VENUS'S SURFACE

In a first for amateur astronomy, backyard observer Christophe Pellier in
Bruz, France, has captured images of the eternally cloud-shrouded surface
of Venus.

Using a 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, a webcam, and a 1-micron
infrared filter, Pellier imaged Venus's night side glowing right through
the planet's clouds on May 12th, when Venus showed a
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