We are conducting a survey using twilight time on the Dark Energy Camera with the Blanco 4 m telescope in Chile to look for objects interior to Earth's and Venus' orbits. To date we have discovered two rare Atira/Apohele asteroids, 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27, which have orbits completely interior to Earth's orbit. We also discovered one new Apollo-type Near Earth Object (NEO) that crosses Earth's orbit, 2022 AP7. Two of the discoveries have diameters greater than or similar to 1 km. 2022 AP7 is likely the largest Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) discovered in about eight years. To date we have covered 624 square degrees of sky near to and interior to the orbit of Venus. The average images go to 21.3 mag in the r band, with the best images near 22nd mag. Our new discovery 2021 PH27 has the smallest semimajor axis known for an asteroid, 0.4617 au, and the largest general relativistic effects (53 arcsec/century) known for any body in the solar system. The survey has detected similar to 15% of all known Atira NEOs. We put strong constraints on any stable population of Venus co-orbital resonance objects existing, as well as the Atira and Vatira asteroid classes. These interior asteroid populations are important to complete the census of asteroids near Earth, including some of the most likely Earth impactors that cannot easily be discovered in other surveys. Comparing the actual population of asteroids found interior to Earth and Venus with those predicted to exist by extrapolating from the known population exterior to Earth is important to better understand the origin, composition, and structure of the NEO population.

An Escherchia coli K12 strain carrying the HhaII methylase and restriction genes on two separate compatible plasmids, pSK5 and pSK7, is used to overproduce the restriction endonuclease. Plasmid pSK5 expresses the methylase gene constitutively from its chloramphenicol resistance gene promoter, and plasmid pSK7 expresses the restriction endonuclease under control of the lacUV5 promoter. Induction of the two-plasmid clone with 1 mM isopropyl-1-thio-.beta.-D-galactopyranoside results in a 15-fold increase in HhaII endonuclease activity. The enzyme has been purified to apparent homogeneity. It migrates as a 23-kilodalton polypeptide on denaturing sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide electrophoretic gels and as an 52-kilodalton native protein dimer on a high pressure liquid chromatography sizing column.

We describe a semi-analytic model to predict the triaxial shapes of dark matter haloes utilizing the sequences of random merging events captured in merger trees to follow the evolution of each halo's energy tensor. When coupled with a simple model for relaxation toward a spherical shape, we find that this model predicts distributions of halo axis length ratios that approximately agree with those measured from cosmological N-body simulations once constrained to match the median axial ratio at a single halo mass. We demonstrate the predictive and explanatory power of this model by considering conditioned distributions of axis length ratios, and the mass dependence of halo shapes, finding these to be in good agreement with N-body results. This model provides both insight into the physics driving the evolution of halo triaxial shapes, and rapid quantitative predictions for the statistics of triaxiality connected directly to the formation history of the halo.

We report BV(RI)(C) CCD photometric data for a group of seven Cepheid variables in the young, rich cluster NGC 1866 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The photometry was obtained as part of a program to determine accurate distances to these Cepheids by means of the infrared surface brightness technique and to improve the LMC Cepheid database for constructing Cepheid P-L and P-L-C relations. Using the new data together with data from the literature, we have determined improved periods for all variables. For five fundamental mode pulsators, the light curves are now of excellent quality and will lead to accurate distance and radius determinations once complete infrared light curves and radial velocity curves for these variables become available.

We present the discovery and follow-up observations of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 011121 and its associated supernova SN 2001ke. Images were obtained with the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment 1.3 m telescope in BVRI passbands, starting 10.3 hr after the burst. The temporal analysis of our early data indicates a steep decay, independent of wavelength, with F-nu proportional to t(-1.72+/-0.05). There is no evidence for a break in the light curve earlier than 2.5 days after the burst. The spectral energy distribution determined from the early broadband photometry is a power law with Fnu proportional to nu(-0.66+/-0.13) after correcting for a large reddening. Spectra obtained with the Magellan 6.5 m Baade telescope reveal narrow emission lines from the host galaxy that provide a redshift of z = 0.362 +/- 0.001 to the GRB. We also present late R - and J-band observations of the afterglow similar to7-17 days after the burst. The late-time photometry shows a large deviation from the initial decline, and our data combined with Hubble Space Telescope photometry provide strong evidence for a supernova peaking about 12 rest-frame days after the GRB. The first spectrum ever obtained of a GRB supernova at cosmological distance revealed a blue continuum. SN 2001ke was more blue near maximum than SN 1998bw and faded more quickly, which demonstrates that a range of properties are possible in supernovae that generate GRBs. The blue color is consistent with a supernova interacting with circumstellar gas, and this progenitor wind is also evident in the optical afterglow. This is the best evidence to date that classical, long GRBs are generated by core-collapse supernovae.