(From west to east)

• Vesta is in the constellation of Leo.
• Herculina is in the constellation of Coma Berenices.
• Pallas is at opposition on the 3rd in the constellation of Coma Berenices.
• Victoria is at opposition on the 11th in the constellation of Libra.
• Eunomia is in the constellation of Sagittarius.

• Information about the Minor Planets can be found at the Minor Planet Observer website.

"PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured images of lightning on Saturn. The images have allowed scientists to create the first movie showing lightning flashing on another planet.

After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft's cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck.

"This is the first time we have the visible lightning flash together with the radio data," said Georg Fischer, a radio and plasma wave science team associate based at the Space Research Institute in Graz, Austria. "Now that the radio and visible light data line up, we know for sure we are seeing powerful lightning storms."

The movie and radio data suggest extremely powerful storms with lightning that flashes as brightly as the brightest super-bolts on Earth, according to Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging science subsystem team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "What's interesting is that the storms are as powerful -- or even more powerful -- at Saturn as on Earth," said Ingersoll. "But they occur much less frequently, with usually only one happening on the planet at any given time, though it can last for months."

Cassini Imaging Team

"Unmanned Spaceflight.com gives its first "Opportunity Award" for public engagement to John Spencer and the New Horizons Jupiter Flyby Planning Team, for seeking and using public suggestions for Kodak-moment imaging opportunities during the New Horizons flyby of Jupiter."

New Horizons gallery

"ASTEROID BELT -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft re-entered our solar system's asteroid belt today, Nov. 13, and this time it will stay there.

Dawn first entered the belt (whose lower boundary may be defined as the greatest distance Mars gets from the sun (249,230,000 kilometers, or 154,864,000 miles) in June 2008. It remained within the belt for 40 days before its carefully planned orbital path brought it below the asteroid belt's lower boundary.

This time around, Dawn's flight path will remain above this hypothetical lower boundary for the rest of the mission and for the foreseeable future - Dawn will become the first human-made object to take up permanent residence in the asteroid belt."

"It's not easy practicing for something no one has done before, but the MESSENGER team is giving it a go. Mission and science operators have wrapped up the third and fourth in a series of rehearsals for how the spacecraft will be operated once it is in orbit about Mercury.

"No spacecraft has orbited Mercury before; although the spacecraft has been operating since 2004 and has flown past Mercury three times, team members have no direct experience planning and scheduling daily science observations and data playback in such an environment," says Alice Berman, MESSENGER's payload operations manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "So we're working now, before we go into orbit, on a readiness plan to ensure that the mission's full science success criteria will be met."

That plan includes Week-in-the-Life tests (or "WITLs"), which simulate one or more weeks in orbital operations to test the new procedures and software being developed for the Mercury orbital mission."

"PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter heard no signal from the Phoenix Mars Lander when it listened from orbit while passing over Phoenix 60 times last week.

Odyssey had also listened for a signal from Phoenix during periods in January and February. During the third campaign, April 5 through April 9, the sun stayed above the horizon continuously at the arctic site where Phoenix completed its mission in 2008.

The solar-powered lander examined ice, soil and atmosphere at the site for two months longer than its planned three-month mission before succumbing to seasonal decline in sunlight. It was not designed to withstand winter conditions. However, in case it did, NASA has used Odyssey to listen for the signals that Phoenix would have transmitted if abundant spring sunshine revived the lander."

"A simulated fly-through using the newly assembled imagery is available online.

The fly-through plus tools for wandering across and zooming into the large image are at THEMIS."

Daily Mars Odyssey THEMIS Images
Can be found at the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) website.

The Odyssey data are available through a new online access system established by the Planetary Data System.

SPIRIT UPDATE: Winter Solstice Just Three Weeks Away - sols 2233-2239, April 15-21, 2010:

"Spirit remains silent at her location called "Troy" on the west side of Home Plate. No communication has been received from the rover since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010).

It is likely that Spirit has experienced a low-power fault and has powered off all sub-systems, except her master clock. The rover will use the available solar array energy to recharge her batteries. When the batteries recover to a sufficient state of charge, Spirit will wake up and begin to communicate. When that does happen, Spirit will also trip an up-loss timer fault. This fault response will allow the rover to communicate over Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) as well as X-band.

It is not know when the rover will wake up, so the project has been listening for any X-band signal from Spirit through the Deep Space Network every day. The relay orbiters are also listening over any scheduled UHF relay passes. The winter solstice is just three weeks away (Sol 2261, or May 13, 2010).

Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles)."

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Recharging Batteries in Between - sols 2212-2218, April 14-20, 2010:

"Opportunity drove three times in the last week, spending time between drives to recharge her batteries. Because of the approaching winter solstice, solar array energy levels have been dropping.

Opportunity must pause from driving for a sol or two to recharge her batteries sufficiently to drive again. On Sol 2213 (April15, 2010), Opportunity drove about 66 meters (217 feet). After recharging on Sol 2214 (April 16, 2010), the rover drove on Sol 2215 (April 17, 2010), traveling only about 36 meters (118 feet). With two sols of recharging, Opportunity drove on Sol 2218 (April 20, 2010), achieving almost 66 meters (217 feet).

The plan ahead is more driving as energy allows. As of Sol 2218 (April 20, 2010), the solar array energy production was 247 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.348 and a dust factor of 0.4995.

Total odometry is 20,553.25 meters (20.55 kilometers, or 12.77 miles)."

Landing sites