1. Space News Update - January 15, 2019 - In the News Departments
Story 1:
Giant Streak Structure Found in Venus’ Cloudtops
Story 2:
Gaia Reveals How Sun-Like Stars Turn Solid after Their Demise
Story 3: Holy Cow! Mysterious Blast Studied with NASA Telescopes
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week

2. Giant Streak Structure Found in Venus’ Cloudtops
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. Gaia Reveals How Sun-Like Stars Turn Solid after Their Demise

4. Holy Cow! Mysterious Blast Studied with NASA Telescopes

5. The Night Sky Sky & Telescope Tuesday, January 15
• The Moon shines high due south shortly after dark. Below it by 7° (less than a fist at arm's length), can you see Alpha Ceti, magnitude 2.5? If so, can you detect the star's reddish orange tint? It's a giant of spectral type K7.
• You may know where the center of our Milky Way galaxy is: in Sagittarius by the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud. But that's for summer. How about the galactic anticenter, high in the winter evening sky? Pinpoint its location at the Taurus-Auriga border, near Beta Tauri, using binoculars and Matt Wedel's diamond-shaped asterism with his Binocular Highlight column in the January Sky & Telescope, page 43. Here, you're looking precisely outward away from the galaxy's center.
Wednesday, January 16
• After nightfall, look through the moonlight for the Pleiades above the Moon, and for Aldebaran and the dim Hyades to the Moon's left, as shown here.
Thursday, January 17
• Now Aldebaran is right of the Moon after dinnertime, as shown here.
• Algol is at minimum brightness for a couple hours centered on 6:59 p.m. EST. It takes several more hours to rebrighten.
Friday, January 18
• Zero-magnitude Capella on high, and equally bright Rigel in Orion's foot, are at almost the same right ascension. This means they cross your sky’s meridian at almost exactly the same time: around 9 or 10 p.m. now, depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone. (Capella goes exactly through your zenith if you're at latitude 46° north: Portland, Oregon; Montreal; central France.) So, whenever Capella passes its very highest, Rigel always marks true south over your landscape, and vice versa.
And tonight, the bright Moon shines between them.
Sky & Telescope

6. ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
Date
Visible
Max Height
Appears
Disappears
Tue Jan 15, 5:25 AM
< 1 min
10°
10° above S
Sat Jan 19, 6:34 PM
10° above SSE
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)
No Live TV Scheduled. Subject to Change due to Government Shutdown
Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website

8. Space Calendar JPL Space Calendar
Jan 15 -] EMISAT/ BlackSky Global 3 PSLV Launch
Jan 15 - Aten Asteroid 2019 AG7 Near-Earth Flyby (0.010 AU)
Jan 15 - Apollo Asteroid 2019 AT6 Near-Earth Flyby (0.021 AU)
Jan 15 - Aten Asteroid 2019 AM8 Near-Earth Flyby (0.022 AU)
Jan 15 - Aten Asteroid 2016 DL Near-Earth Flyby (0.053 AU)
Jan 15 - Amor Asteroid 433 Eros Closest Approach To Earth (0.209 AU)
Jan 15 - Asteroid 4970 Druyan Closest Approach To Earth (1.184 AU)
Jan 15 - Asteroid 9523 Torino Closest Approach To Earth (1.253 AU)
Jan 15 - Asteroid Battams Closest Approach To Earth (1.779 AU)
Jan 15 - Asteroid 7079 Baghdad Closest Approach To Earth (1.862 AU)
Jan th Anniversary (1969), Discovery of 1st Optical Pulsar by John Cocke & Michael Disney
Jan 16 - Comet 107P/Wilson-Harrington Closest Approach To Earth (1.742 AU)
Jan 16 - Apollo Asteroid 2019 AU9 Near-Earth Flyby (0.020 AU)
Jan 16 - Aten Asteroid 2019 AR8 Near-Earth Flyby (0.025 AU)
Jan 16 - Apollo Asteroid 2013 EC20 Closest Approach To Earth (0.883 AU)
Jan 16 - Asteroid 2653 Principia Closest Approach To Earth (1.307 AU)
Jan 16 - Asteroid Davidbrown Closest Approach To Earth (1.890 AU)
Jan 16 - Lecture: Ultima Thule - Beyond the Known World, Tuscon, Arizona
Jan 16 - Lecture: Antarctica as a Time Machine - Our Portal to Snowball Earth and Faraway Worlds, Menlo Park, California
Jan Workshop: Tests of Gravity, Athens, Greece
Jan 17 - RAPIS 1/ ALE 1/ Hodoyoshi 2 (RISESat)/ MicroDragon/ OrigamiSat 1/ AOBA-VELOX 4/ NEXUS Epsilon Launch
Jan 17 - Comet 38P/Stephan-Oterma At Opposition (0.858 AU)
Jan 17 - Apollo Asteroid 2019 AC3 Near-Earth Flyby (0.027 AU)
Jan 17 - Atira Asteroid 2012 VE46 Closest Approach To Earth (0.399 AU)
Jan 17 - Asteroid 6111 Davemckay Closest Approach To Earth (1.269 AU)
JPL Space Calendar

9. Sugar is Sweet, Essential to Life — and It is Probably in Deep Space
Food for Thought
Sugar is Sweet, Essential to Life — and It is Probably in Deep Space

10. Tycho's Supernova Remnant in X-ray
Space Image of the Week
Tycho's Supernova Remnant in X-ray
Image Credit: NASA / CXC / F.J. Lu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) et al.