1. Space News Update - July 3, 2018 - In the News Departments Story 1:
First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet Caught with ESO’s VLT
Story 2:
There’s Sand on Titan, Where Does it Come From?
Story 3: Dawn’s Latest Orbit Reveals Dramatic New Views of Occator Crater
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week

2. First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet Caught with ESO’s VLT
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. There’s Sand on Titan, Where Does it Come From?

4. Dawn’s Latest Orbit Reveals Dramatic New Views of Occator Crater

5. The Night Sky Sky & Telescope Tuesday, July 3
• If you have a dark enough sky, the Milky Way now forms a magnificent arch high across the whole eastern sky after nightfall is complete. It runs all the way from below Cassiopeia in the north-northeast, up and across Cygnus and the Summer Triangle in the east, and down behind Saturn and the spout of the Sagittarius Teapot in the south.
Wednesday, July 4
• Tonight, users of large telescopes in the Americas can watch for Saturn and especially its rings occulting a 10th-magnitude star from about midnight to 3 a.m. EDT (dusk to midnight PDT).
Thursday, July 5
• Last-quarter Moon tonight (exact at 3:51 a.m. July 6th EDT). The Moon rises around 1 a.m. between Pisces and Aquarius, in the dim "Great Water" region of constellations. The Moon hangs high in the southeast by sunrise on the 6th. The moonless late nights for the next week are a fine time to go hunting for the little-known deep-sky objects in the Cygnus Milky Way, near Albireo, is climbing high.
In twilight every day Regulus is sliding closer to Venus, which outshines it by more than 100 times. Mercury, 15° to Venus's lower right, is becoming pretty easy to see if you catch it at the right time.
Friday, July 6
• Three doubles at the top of Scorpius. The head of Scorpius — the nearly vertical row of three stars upper right of Antares — stands due south after dark, about two fists at arm's length to the left of bright Jupiter. The top star of the row is Beta (ß) Scorpii or Graffias, a fine double star for telescopes.
Just 1° below or lower left of it (a fingertip at arm's length) is the very wide naked-eye pair Omega1 and Omega2 Scorpii, not quite vertical. Binoculars show their slight color difference.
Upper left of of Beta by 1.6° is Nu Scorpii (Jabbah), another fine telescopic double. High power in good seeing reveals that Nu's brighter component is itself a close binary, separation 2 arcseconds.
• Earth is at the aphelion of its orbit today, its farthest from the Sun for the year, 3% farther than at perihelion in Janu

6. The Night Sky (continued)
Sky & Telescope
This all-sky map shows the sky shortly before midnight local time in early July.
Credit: Stellarium

7. ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
Date
Visible
Max Height
Appears
Disappears
Wed Jul 4, 3:03 AM
< 1 min
11°
11° above ESE
10° above ESE
Wed Jul 4, 4:36 AM
4 min
65°
15° above WSW
35° above NE
Thu Jul 5, 3:46 AM
2 min
63°
54° above S
22° above ENE
Fri Jul 6, 2:55 AM
24°
24° above E
11° above ENE
Fri Jul 6, 4:28 AM
30°
11° above W
22° above NNE
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

8. 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)
No Live events planned until Monday July 9th.
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

9. Space Calendar JPL Space Calendar
Jul 03 - Amor Asteroid 2018 MQ5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.081 AU)
Jul 03 - Asteroid Emilylakdawalla Closest Approach To Earth (2.060 AU)
Jul 03 - Kuiper Belt Object (2002 MS4) At Opposition ( AU)
Jul 03 - Seminar: Galactic Rotation Curves vs. Ultra-Light Dark Matter, Trieste, Italy
Jul Global Ocean Summit 2018 (GOS2018), Qingdao, China
Jul French Astronomy Week 2018, Bordeaux, France
Jul nd Information Universe Conference 2018, Groningen, The Netherlands
Jul 04 - Comet 289P/Blanpain At Opposition (3.357 AU)
Jul 04 - Asteroid 4 Vesta Occults TYC (10.9 Magnitude Star)
Jul 04 - Apollo Asteroid 2018 MB7 Near-Earth Flyby (0.007 AU)
Jul 04 - Aten Asteroid 2016 NB1 Near-Earth Flyby (0.068 AU)
Jul th GEO Blue Planet Symposium, Toulouse, France
Jul th International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP 2018), Seoul, Korea
Jul Workshop on Frontiers in Gravitation, Astrophysics, and Cosmology, Kolymbari Crete, Greece
Jul 05 - Comet 101P-B/Chernykh At Opposition (3.789 AU)
Jul 05 - Apollo Asteroid 2018 MC5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.057 AU)
Jul 05 - Apollo Asteroid 2018 AJ2 Near-Earth Flyby (0.091 AU)
Jul 05 - Aten Asteroid 2340 Hathor Closest Approach To Earth (0.532 AU)
Jul 05 - Asteroid 3709 Polypoites Closest Approach To Earth (4.569 AU)
Jul 05 - Centaur Object Amycus At Opposition ( AU)
Jul Event: SpaceFest IX, Tucson, Arizona
Jul 06 - Comet P/2017 Y3 (Leonard) Closest Approach To Earth (1.492 AU)
Jul 06 - Comet 101P/Chernykh At Opposition (3.721 AU)
Jul 06 - Asteroid 3526 Jeffbell Closest Approach To Earth (1.530 AU)

10. NASA Uses Earth as Laboratory to Study Distant Worlds
Food for Thought
NASA Uses Earth as Laboratory to Study Distant Worlds

11. Nearby Asteroids Photobomb Distant Galaxies
Space Image of the Week
Nearby Asteroids Photobomb Distant Galaxies
Copyright NASA, ESA, and B. Sunnquist and J. Mack (STScI) Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz (STScI) and the HFF Team