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Sky & Telescope's Weekly News Bulletin
July 19, 1996
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(58K gif) When this picture appeared on television monitors at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on July 20, 1976, wild cheers erupted. It meant that Viking 1 had successfully landed on the planet Mars. Note the spacecraft's footpad at lower right. Courtesy NASA.
A Martian 20th Anniversary
NASA scientists, members of the Planetary Society, and a host of other Mars enthusiasts gathered in Washington, D.C., today to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Viking 1 landing on the red planet. Viking touched down in Chryse Planitia on July 20, 1976, just two weeks after the U.S. bicentennial and seven years to the day after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. A second Viking lander came to rest in Utopia Planitia six weeks later. Participants in a symposium at the National Academy of Sciences today considered the rich legacy of the Viking project and eagerly anticipated the next generation of robotic Mars explorers. A new era of Martian science begins later this year when NASA launches Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor and Russia launches Mars 96; all three probes will arrive at the red planet in mid- to late 1997.
Astronaut Shannon Lucid now holds the U.S. record for time spent in Earth orbit. She eclipsed the previous record, 115 days, on July 15th. Lucid, 53, has been an astronaut since 1977, when she was named with five other women and 29 men to the first group of shuttle pilots and mission specialists. Courtesy NASA.
New U.S. Space Record
On July 15th, Shannon Lucid broke the space endurance record for American astronauts during her stay on the Russian space station Mir. On that date Lucid had been in space for more than 115 days, surpassing the in-orbit residency of Norm Thagard, the previous American tenant of Mir. Lucid will have many more days in orbit to ponder this record. Due to possible problems with the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters, NASA pushed back the launch of the next Mir-docking mission, which will bring Lucid back to Earth, six weeks until mid-September.
Comet Hale-Bopp Update
Over the past week, observers were reporting that Comet Hale-Bopp was between magnitude 5.5 and 6.1. For the coming week, the comet will be moving from Scutum into Serpens. Keep in mind that this giant ball of frozen gases is still some 550 million kilometers away from the Sun -- between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. At the same distance, Comet Halley was about 16th magnitude!
(90K gif) Comet Hale-Bopp's path through the sky in 1996. Now at naked-eye visibility, the comet is an easy target in binoculars and small telescopes.
Here are Comet Hale-Bopp's positions (equinox 2000.0) for the coming week at 0 hours Universal Time:
| Comet Hale-Bopp | R. A. | Decl. |
| July 21 | 18h 26m | -9.9° |
| July 23 | 18h 23m | -9.7° |
| July 25 | 18h 20m | -9.5° |
For more information about Comet Hale-Bopp, see SKY Online's Comet Page.
Hubble's Many Pictures
And another space milestone was reached recently. NASA announced this week that the Hubble Space Telescope took its 100,000th image on June 22nd. According to Space Telescope Science Institute director Robert Williams, this feat comes several years ahead of initial predictions thanks to improved management of observing time. Originally estimated to have a 35-percent observing efficiency, Hubble has averaged around 50 percent, and reaching an all time high of 74 percent last December while capturing the deep-field view of distant galaxies.
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