1. Space News Update - July 11, 2017 - In the News Departments Story 1:
BepiColombo shaken and stacked ahead Mercury mission
Story 2:
Hidden Stars May Make Planets Appear Smaller
Story 3: Astronomers track the birth of a 'super-Earth'
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week

2. BepiColombo shaken and stacked ahead Mercury mission
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)

3. Hidden Stars May Make Planets Appear Smaller

4. Astronomers track the birth of a 'super-Earth'
This image, generated by the computer model proposed in this study, simulates the evolution of a protoplanetary disk with one "super-Earth." It reveals similar features as the image of an actual disk such as HL Tau observed with ALMA. Credit: Ruobing Dong

5. The Night Sky Sky & Telescope Tuesday, July 11
• Double stars in the top of Scorpius. The two brightest points due south after twilight ends are Saturn and, right or lower right of it, Antares. To the right and upper right of Antares is the nearly vertical row of three stars marking the head of Scorpius. The top star of the row is Beta Scorpii or Graffias, a fine double star for telescopes.
Just 1° lower left of Beta Sco is the fainter, very wide naked-eye pair Omega1 and Omega2 Scorpii, oriented diagonally. Binoculars may show their slight color difference.
Upper left of Beta by 1.6° is Nu Scorpii, another fine telescopic double. High power in good seeing reveals that Nu's brighter component is itself a close binary, separation 2 arcseconds.
Wednesday, July 12
• Europa: now you see it, now you don't. Telescope users in western North America can watch an unusual event on Jupiter's eastern limb this evening. At 9:18 p.m. PDT, Europa emerges out of occultation from behind the planet, seeming to bud off from Jupiter's edge. And then just three minutes later it fades away again into eclipse by Jupiter's shadow.
The events are gradual. Use high power to see Europa so close to the planet's glare.
Thursday, July 13
• Venus is passing 3° north (upper left) of Aldebaran in the dawn this morning and Friday morning. See the illustration above.
Mercury in twilight, mid-July 2017
Binoculars will help with finding Mercury and its fainter neighbors. Their visibility in bright twilight is exaggerated here.
Friday, July 14
• Mercury is having a poor apparition low in evening twilight this month. But it's bright enough (magnitude –0.2 this evening) that you can pick it up anyway if the air is good and clear. Your best chance is probably about a half hour after sunset, as shown at right.
• One hour after sunset, as twilight is fading deeper and the stars are coming out, you'll find the two brightest stars of summer, Vega and Arcturus, high overhead equally far from the zenith: Vega toward the east, and Arcturus toward the southwest (depending on your location).
Sky & Telescope

6. ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
Date
Visible
Max Height
Appears
Disappears
Wed Jul 12, 3:10 AM
1 min
38°
38° above NNW
26° above NNE
Wed Jul 12, 4:46 AM
2 min
12°
10° above NW
11° above N
Thu Jul 13, 2:20 AM
19°
19° above NE
10° above NE
Thu Jul 13, 3:52 AM
3 min
15°
11° above NW
13° above N
Fri Jul 14, 3:01 AM
21°
21° above NW
17° above N
Fri Jul 14, 4:39 AM
10°
10° above NNW
10° above N
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

7. NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone)
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)
10 a.m., Wednesday, July 12 - Langley Centennial Events -- Panel Discussion with Langley Center Directors (NTV-1 (Public))
3:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 12 - Langley Centennial Events -- Panel Discussion: The History of Flight, A Century of Finding Practical Solutions (Starts at 3:20 p.m.) (NTV-1 (Public))
8:30 a.m., Thursday, July 13 - Langley Centennial Events -- Keynote Presentation: Inventing the Future of Space Dr. Jean-Yves Le Gall, President, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) (NTV-1 (Public))
10 a.m., Thursday, July 13 - ISS Expedition 52 In-Flight Interview with the Associated Press TV News Network and NASA Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson (starts at 10:20 a.m.) (all channels)
3:30 p.m., Thursday, July 13 - Langley Centennial Events -- Panel Discussion: NASA Langley Contributions to Space Technology and Space Exploration (NTV-1 (Public))
8:30 a.m., Friday, July 14 - Video B-Roll Feed of Training and Previous Mission of ISS Expedition Flight Engineer Randy Bresnik of NASA (all channels)
9 a.m., Friday, July 14 - Live Interviews with Expedition Flight Engineer Randy Bresnik of NASA from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia (all channels)
11 a.m., Friday, July 14 - Langley Centennial Events -- NASA Associate Administrator Panel Discussion: Future of Aerospace in the Next Years (NTV-1 (Public))
Tue May 30, 9:16 PM
1 min
14°
14° above N
10° above NNE
Tue May 30, 10:53 PM
< 1 min
10°
10° above N
Wed May 31, 00:30 AM
18°
18° above N
Wed May 31, 10:01 PM
Wed May 31, 11:38 PM
2 min
15°
14° above NE
Thu Jun 1, 9:09 PM
11°
11° above N
Thu Jun 1, 10:45 PM
12°
12° above N
10° above NE
Fri Jun 2, 00:20 AM
17°
10° above NW
17° above NNW
Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website

8. Space Calendar JPL Space Calendar
Jul 11 - Comet 311P/PANSTARRS Perihelion (1.936 AU)
Jul 11 - Apollo Asteroid 2017 MC4 Near-Earth Flyby (0.019 AU)
Jul 11 - Asteroid 5748 Davebrin Closest Approach To Earth (1.906 AU)
Jul 11 - Ted Maiman's 90th Birthday (1927)
Jul 11 - Jerome Lalande's 285th Birthday (1732)
Jul 12 - Comet 73P-AL/Schwassmann-Wachmann Perihelion (0.961 AU)
Jul 12 - Comet P/2004 FY140 (LINEAR) Closest Approach To Earth (3.659 AU)
Jul 12 - [Jul 05] Apollo Asteroid 2017 NH Near-Earth Flyby (0.043 AU)
Jul 12 - Aten Asteroid Selqet Closest Approach To Earth (0.273 AU)
Jul 12 - Asteroid 7079 Baghdad Closest Approach To Earth (0.711 AU)
Jul 12 - Apollo Asteroid 5011 Ptah Closest Approach To Earth (1.812 AU)
Jul 12 - Asteroid Atacama Closest Approach To Earth (2.080 AU)
Jul 12 - Asteroid 3162 Nostalgia Closest Approach To Earth (2.586 AU)
Jul th Anniversary (1977), High Engery Astronomical Observatory (HEAO-1) Launch
Jul 12 - Rick Husband's 60th Birthday (1957)
Jul 13 - Langley Research Center's 100th Birthday (1917)
Jul 13 - Cassini, Distant Flyby of Ephimetheus, Pandora, Atlas & Prometheus
Jul 13 - Moon Occults Neptune
Jul 13 - Comet P/2008 O2 (McNaught) At Opposition (3.096 AU)
Jul 13 - Asteroid 4355 Memphis Closest Approach To Earth (1.522 AU)
Jul 13 - Asteroid Moa Closest Approach To Earth (1.620 AU)
Jul 13 - Asteroid 5223 McSween Closest Approach To Earth (2.010 AU)
Jul 13 - Asteroid Berndpauli Closest Approach To Earth (2.726 AU)
Jul 13 - Neptune Trojan 2011 HM102 At Opposition ( AU)
Jul 13 - Mary Lea Heger's 120th Birthday (1897)
Jul 13 - John Dee's 490th Birthday (1527)
Jul 14 - Kanopus-V-IK 1/ AISSat 3/ CICERO 1/ Corvus-BC 1 & 2/ Perseus-O 1-4/ MKA-N 1 & 2/ Mayak/ TechnoSat Soyuz-2-1a Fregat-M Launch
Jul 14 - Comet C/2017 D2 (Barros) Perihelion (2.485 AU)
Jul 14 - Apollo Asteroid 2014 UV115 Near-Earth Flyby (0.096 AU)
Jul 14 - Asteroid 7392 Kowalski Closest Approach To Earth (1.782 AU)
Jul th Anniversary (1847), Braunau Meteorite Fall (Hit House in Czechoslovakia)
JPL Space Calendar

9. China’s long march to the moon
New Technique Puts Exoplanets on the Scale
New Technique Puts Exoplanets on the Scale
Food for Thought
China’s long march to the moon

10. Space Image of the Week
Dawn’s Early Light