Space News Update - January 8, 2016 - In the News Departments Story 1: ‘X’ Marks a Curious Corner on Pluto’s Icy Plains Story 2: Student-Built Experiment Integrated onto NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission Story 3: NASA's Great Observatories Weigh Massive Young Galaxy Cluster Departments The Night Sky ISS Sighting Opportunities Space Calendar NASA-TV Highlights Food for Thought Space Image of the Week

‘X’ Marks a Curious Corner on Pluto’s Icy Plains In this computer graphic, NASA's Voyager 1 probe, moving toward upper left, nears the edge of the sun's influence, flying through a region of space dominated by a "magnetic highway" that helps mediate the flow of particles into and out of the solar system. The region includes particles from the sun's southern hemisphere that have been forced northward by the pressure of the interstellar wind. Voyager 1 is expected to cross the boundary into interstellar space sometime within the next few years if not sooner. (Credit: NASA)

Student-Built Experiment Integrated onto NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission

NASA's Great Observatories Weigh Massive Young Galaxy Cluster

The Night Sky Sky & Telescope Friday, January 8 • Venus-Saturn conjunction: In early dawn Saturday morning, spot brilliant Venus, the "Morning Star," in the southeast. Right next to it will be Saturn, only 1/60 as bright. When seen from the Americas, they'll be 1/2° or less apart. That's about the width of a chopstick at arm's length. Binoculars give a fine view, and both planets will fit into a telescope's low- or medium-power eyepiece. They'll be at their very closest, a mere 0.1° apart, around 4h Universal Time: excellent timing for Europe. Saturday, January 9 • In this very coldest time of the year, the dim Little Dipper hangs straight down from Polaris after dinnertime, as if (per Leslie Peltier) from a nail on the cold north wall of the sky. The Big Dipper, meanwhile, is creeping up low in the north-northeast. Its handle is very low and its bowl is to the upper right. • New Moon (exact at 8:31 p.m. EST). • Algol should be at minimum light for a couple hours centered on 7:20 p.m. EST. Sunday, January 10 • If you don't know Kemble's Cascade, maybe you should. It's a lovely binocular asterism in Camelopardalis off the top of Perseus. This lovely stream of mostly faint stars is 2° long, running northwest to southeast. You can use the finder chart in Gary Seronik's Binocular Highlight on page 43 of the January Sky & Telescope. Most of the Kemble's Cascade stars are too faint (7th or 8th magnitude) to show on the finder chart, but the black circle there is centered on its 5th-magnitude middle star. Monday, January 11 • Bright Capella high overhead, and bright Rigel in Orion's foot, are at almost the same right ascension — so they cross your sky’s meridian at almost the same time (around 10 p.m. now, depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone). This means that whenever Capella passes its very highest, Rigel marks true south over your landscape. - Sky & Telescope

ISS Sighting Opportunities ISS For Denver: Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears Sat Jan 9, 5:31 AM < 1 min 16° 16° above NNE 11° above NNE Sun Jan 10, 6:12 AM 2 min 12° 12° above NNW 10° above NNE Mon Jan 11, 5:21 AM 10° Mon Jan 11, 6:57 AM 10° above N Tue Jan 12, 6:04 AM 1 min 10° above NNW Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights Tuesday, January 12 MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013 NASA MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013 NASA MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013 NASA NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone) Tuesday, January 12 2 p.m., ISS Expedition 46 Spacewalk Preview Briefing (all channels)   Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website

Space Calendar JPL Space Calendar Jan 08 - Comet 81P/Wild Closest Approach To Earth (1.475 AU) Jan 08 - [Jan 08] Comet P/2016 A2 (Christensen) At Opposition (2.477 AU) Jan 08 - Apollo Asteroid 2015 WE2 Near-Earth Flyby (0.058 AU) Jan 08 - Apollo Asteroid 2015 XE261 Near-Earth Flyby (0.084 AU) Jan 08 - Asteroid 3356 Resnik Closest Approach To Earth (1.441 AU) Jan 08 - Walther Bothe's 125th Birthday (1891) Jan 09 - Venus Passes 0.1 Degrees From Saturn Jan 09 - Amor Asteroid 2015 XW351 Near-Earth Flyby (0.083 AU) Jan 09 - [Jan 04] Apollo Asteroid 2015 YC18 Near-Earth Flyby (0.089 AU) Jan 09 - Aten Asteroid 2014 BA3 Closest Approach To Earth (1.043 AU) Jan 09 - Asteroid 3651 Friedman Closest Approach To Earth (1.438 AU) Jan 09 - Asteroid 11277 Ballard Closest Approach To Earth (2.028 AU) Jan 09 - Asteroid 3317 Paris Closest Approach To Earth (4.933 AU) Jan 09 - Centaur Object 32532 Thereus At Opposition (11.822 AU) Jan 09 - 30th Anniversary (1986), Stephen Synnott's Discovery of Uranus Moon Cressida Jan 09 - Steve Squyres' 60th Birthday (1956) Jan 10 - Comet 313P/Gibbs Closest Approach To Earth (2.330 AU) Jan 10 - Comet 307P/LINEAR Closest Approach To Earth (2.984 AU) Jan 10 - Comet P/2012 T2 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (4.622 AU) Jan 10 - Asteroid 7462 Grenoble Closest Approach To Earth (1.045 AU) Jan 10 - Asteroid 7032 Hitchcock Closest Approach To Earth (1.103 AU) Jan 10 - Asteroid 165347 Philplait Closest Approach To Earth (1.160 AU) Jan 10 - Asteroid 1034 Mozartia Closest Approach To Earth (1.787 AU) Jan 10 - Asteroid 85386 Payton Closest Approach To Earth (1.849 AU) Jan 10 - Asteroid 416 Vaticana Closest Approach To Earth (2.314 AU) Jan 10 - 70th Anniversary (1946), Radar Astronomy Born When Radar Bounced Off Moon by the US Army Jan 10 - Robert Wilson's 80th Birthday (1936) Jan 11 - Comet 116P/Wild Perihelion (2.186 AU) Jan 11 - Comet 73P-AS/Schwassmann-Wachmann At Opposition (3.609 AU) Jan 11 - Comet 73P-AP/Schwassmann-Wachmann At Opposition (3.642 AU) Jan 11 - 20th Anniversary (1996), STS-72 Launch (Space Shuttle Endeavour) JPL Space Calendar

NASA's CORAL Campaign Will Raise Reef Studies to a New Level Food for Thought NASA's CORAL Campaign Will Raise Reef Studies to a New Level

Space Image of the Week High Energy Andromeda