1. Space News Update - May 8, 2018 - In the News Departments Story 1:
NASA, ULA Launch Mission to Study How Mars Was Made
Story 2:
Hubble Detects Helium in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet for the First Time
Story 3: NASA Cancels Lunar Rover, Shifts Focus to Commercial Moon Landers
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week

2. NASA, ULA Launch Mission to Study How Mars Was Made
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. Hubble Detects Helium in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet for the First Time

4. NASA Cancels Lunar Rover, Shifts Focus to Commercial Moon Landers

5. The Night Sky Sky & Telescope Tuesday, May 8
• Jupiter is at opposition tonight — opposite the Sun as seen from Earth — and about at its closest and brightest for the year.
Wednesday, May 9
• Arcturus is the brightest star very high in the east these evenings. Spica shines about three fists at arm's length to its lower right. To the right of Spica by half that distance is the distinctive four-star constellation of Corvus, the springtime Crow.
Far below Arcturus, Jupiter glares.
Thursday, May 10
• These spring nights, the long, dim sea serpent Hydra snakes along level far across the southern sky. Find his head, a rather dim asterism about the width of your thumb at arm's length, in the southwest. (It's lower right of Regulus by about two fists at arm's length. Also, a line from Castor through Pollux points to it about 2½ fists away.) Lower left of this is Hydra's heart, orange Alphard. Hydra's tail stretches all the way to Libra in the southeast. Hydra's star pattern, from forehead to tail-tip, is 95° long.
This sky map shows the location of the huge snake constellation Hydra in the southern sky at around 9 pm ET as seen from the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
• In the early-morning hours of Friday, the asteroid 472 Roma should occult a 10.8-magnitude star in Serpens Caput for telescope users along a path from northern California through Georgia.
Friday, May 11
• The Arch of Spring spans the western sky in late twilight. Pollux and Castor form its top: they're lined up roughly horizontally in the west-northwest, about three finger-widths at arm's length apart. Look far to their lower left for Procyon, and farther to their lower right for Menkalinan and then bright Capella.
Sky & Telescope

6. ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
Date
Visible
Max Height
Appears
Disappears
Wed May 9, 2:56 AM
< 1 min
23°
23° above NE
19° above NE
Wed May 9, 4:30 AM
3 min
15°
11° above NW
12° above NNE
Thu May 10, 3:38 AM
2 min
21°
20° above NW
15° above NNE
Thu May 10, 5:16 AM
1 min
10°
10° above NNW
10° above N
Fri May 11, 2:48 AM
22°
22° above NNE
19° above NNE
Fri May 11, 4:22 AM
11°
10° above NNE
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)
Tuesday, May 8
2 p.m. - U.S. Spacewalk Briefing (all channels)
4 p.m. and 8 p.m. - Replay of the U.S. Spacewalk Briefing (all channels)
Thursday, May 10
12 p.m. - ISS Expedition 55 Education In-Flight Event for the Boeing/Genes in Space Experiment with Flight Engineers Drew Feustel and Scott Tingle of NASA (starts at 12:05 p.m.) (all channels)
Friday, May 11
4 p.m. - Video File of the ISS Expedition Crew First Soyuz Qualification Training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia (Recorded on May 10-11; Prokopyev, Aunon-Chancellor, Gerst) (all channels)
7:30 p.m. - ISS Expedition 55 In-Flight Event for Purdue University conferring an Honorary Degree on Flight Engineer Drew Feustel of NASA (NASA Flight Engineer Scott Tingle, a Purdue graduate
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
May 08 Gaofen 5 / Long March 4C Launch
May 08 - Comet 253P/PANSTARRS Perihelion (2.037 AU)
May 08 - Comet 254P/McNaught At Opposition (4.181 AU)
May 08 - Asteroid 21 Lutetia Occults TYC (11.7 Magnitude Star)
May 08 - Apollo Asteroid 2016 JQ5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.016 AU)
May 08 - Asteroid 2709 Sagan Closest Approach To Earth (1.063 AU)
May 08 - Asteroid Goodall Closest Approach To Earth (1.622 AU)
May 08 - Apollo Asteroid 3103 Eger Closest Approach To Earth (1.753 AU)
May 08 - Centaur Object (2004 YH32) At Opposition ( AU)
May 09 - Jupiter At Opposition
May 09 - Comet C/2016 R2 (PANSTARRS) Perihelion (2.602 AU)
May 09 - Comet 348P/PANSTARRS Closest Approach To Earth (2.870 AU)
May 09 - Comet P/1999 RO28 (LONEOS) At Opposition (2.929 AU)
May 09 - Apollo Asteroid (2008 TZ3) Near-Earth Flyby (0.017 AU)
May 09 - Asteroid Peterbrown Closest Approach To Earth (1.953 AU)
May 09 - Asteroid Maxwell Closest Approach To Earth (2.139 AU)
May 09 - Teleconference: Exoplanet Science Strategy
May 09 - Teleconference: Extraterrestrial Sample Analysis Facilities
May 09 - Lecture: Dragonfly: A Rotorcraft Lander to Explore Saturn's Moon Titan, Ithaca, New York
May African Regional Data Cube (ARDC) Workshop, Nairobi, Kenya
May 10 - Comet P/2017 B4 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (2.933 AU)
May 10 - Comet 260P/McNaught At Opposition (3.169 AU)
May 10 - Comet 230P/LINEAR At Opposition (4.175 AU)
May 10 - Asteroid 243 Ida Occults TYC (9.9 Magnitude Star)
May 10
JPL Space Calendar

9. Hawking Takes on the Infinite Multiverse
Food for Thought
Hawking Takes on the Infinite Multiverse

10. The Unusual Boulder at Tycho's Peak
Space Image of the Week
The Unusual Boulder at Tycho's Peak