With the construction of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada: Yukon Centre Observatory @ the Takhini Hot Springs underway, and the start of regular bi-monthly sessions in September, we felt it was important to highlight the next series of FREE open-to-the-public events:

1. Perseid Meteor Shower Will Be Extra Awesome August 11 (after midnight until August 13 in the morning)
2. Eyes on Juno August 27 @ 4:30 - 6:30 AM @ the Yukon College room A2402
3. OSIRIS-REx: THE MISSION September 5 @ 7:00 - 9:00 PM @ the Yukon College room A2402. Dr. Christa Van Laerhoven, PhD: Planetary Scientist and Orbital Dynamicist from the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics will cover the topic: “What does OSIRIS-REx hope to find on asteroid Bennu?”
4. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is a planned NASA asteroid study and sample return mission. The launch is scheduled for September 8 2016. RASC: Yukon Centre will attempt to cover the launch, just as we did with JUNO via a link with NASA in real-time.

The Society, also known as the Yukon Astronomical Society, is looking at bringing to Whitehorse more Guest Speakers this 2016-2017 year such as:

• David H. Levy: one of the most successful comet discoverers in history.  He has discovered 22 comets, nine of them using his own backyard telescopes.  With Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California he discovered Shoemaker-Levy 9, the comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994.  That episode produced the most spectacular explosions ever witnessed in the solar system. He is a Canadian astronomer.
  
• Col. Chris Hadfield: first Canadian Astronaut to walk in space, operate Canadarm, and command the International Space Station.
• Jack Newton: known for his world famous photographs. In 1991 Newton became the first amateur astrophotographer in the world to make full (RGB) color CCD images of celestial objects using a Santa Barbara Instruments Group ST-4 camera, making a full color CCD image of M57, the "Ring Nebula" and M27, the "Dumbbell Nebula". Newton received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, the Ken Chilton Prize from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1978, the Amateur Achievement Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1988, and the Chant Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1989. He is a Canadian astronomer.
  
• Ten-year-old Kathryn Gray: After returning home to New Brunswick, she discovered a supernova about 240 million light years away. Kathryn is the youngest person ever to have discovered a stellar explosion.
  

The next close approach will take Juno within 2,600 miles (4,200 km) of the planet's cloud tops. This pass should return the first real scientific bounty of the mission.  Remember Juno's instruments were off on July 4, to reduce complications during that day's pivotal orbit-insertion burn, but they will be operating on Aug. 27.
 
Juno will conduct another 53-day orbit after the Aug. 27 close approach. Then, in October, the probe will perform one more engine burn to shift into a 14-day orbit. At which point, the probe's science mission will officially begin. Juno will loop around Jupiter more than 30 times, observing the gas giant with its suite of science instruments. The mission is scheduled to end in February 2018 with an intentional death dive into Jupiter's thick atmosphere. "For five years, we've been focused on getting to Jupiter. Now we're there, and we're concentrating on beginning dozens of flybys of Jupiter to get the science we're after," Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in the same statement.

The Yukon Astronomical Society will, once again, host a FREE open to the public event on the mission to Jupiter from the Yukon College. On Saturday the 27th of August 2016, meeting room to be announced (we hope A2402), and we will, once again, link to the Eyes on the Solar System module dedicated to the Juno mission to Jupiter. In this online, interactive visualization, we can ride along with the Juno spacecraft, in real-time, using the classroom's Smart Board.

Also, the Perseid Meteor shower  will be extra awesome this year NASA says. Shooting-star seekers heading out to watch the Perseid meteor shower Aug. 11 and 12 (between 1 and 2 am in the Yukon) may see a much better show than in past years. That's because the Earth will collide with more material than usual from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which is the source of the Perseids. Jupiter's gravity has tugged the debris stream in such a way that Earth will move closer to the middle of the stream, rather than the edge, NASA officials said in a statement.

In fact, Earth may collide with three or more streams during the shower this year. This could result in double the usual rate of meteors, and a spectacular rate of 200 meteors per hour under perfect conditions, according to the statement.

Please forward to anyone whom you feel will be interested.
Reference Material:

• https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html
  

• < >Here's how and when to see the Perseids: http://www.space.com/32868-perseid-meteor-shower-guide.html
  
• http://www.space.com/32868-perseid-meteor-shower-guide.html#ooid=J0aW8yNTE68y-126SLbyxVb9om14I_r5