PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 1/2003 - 7 January 2003
------------------------------
** Wishing all CCNet readers a Happy New Year **
"As an astrophysicist, I admit that few issues in my trade
could be
considered pressing. However, there is one aspect of my work that
could
have deadly consequences -- or, more precisely, will have deadly
consequences if it is ignored. Here is where heaven and Earth
meet: in the
long-run certainty that people will die from the effects of an
asteroid,
large or small, hitting the planet."
-- Piet Hut, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., 4
January 2002
"Two years ago, the Government set up a task force to decide
what
they should do about countering the danger from Near Earth
Objects
(NEOs). The group recommended a sophisticated, international
network
of telescopes. What we got was an information centre in Leicester
- more
Blake's Seven than Deep Impact."
-- The Express, 1 January 2002
(1) ASTEROID TO PASS BY EARTH ON ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS
Sify News, 7 January 2002
(2) INTERNATIONAL SPACE AND ASTRONOMY CENTRE TO BE BUILT ON
MERSEYSIDE
Liverpool John Moores University News,
December 2002
(3) ANNOUNCEMENT OF ROSETTA LAUNCH DELAY
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(4) ROCKET INQUIRY TO REPORT AS ROSETTA LAUNCH REMAINS DOUBTFUL
BBC, 6 January 2002
(5) REINING IN THE COSMIC SERPENTS: LANDING ON A COMET
UPI Science News, 5 January 2002
(6) SMALL ASTEROID PLAYS CAT-AND MOUSE GAME WITH EARTH
Associated Press, 5 January 2003
(7) INDIAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR EFFORTS TO DESTROY ASTEROID 1950DA
Vishnu Reddy <vishnureddy@hotmail.com>
(8) SURPRISE COMET STREAKS INTO SOLAR SYSTEM
National Geographic News, 19 December 2002
(9) 'NO WATER' ON MARS
The Australian, 6 January 2002
(10) NEAR-EARTH SUPERNOVAS
NASA Science News, 6 January 2003
(11) HAPPY NEW YEAR
Anatoly V. Zaitsev <pdc@berc.rssi.ru>
(12) UNDER THE BOTTOM LINE: BREATHE EASY, WE HAVE MANAGED TO
ESCAPE THE
APOCALYPSE AGAIN.
A WRY LOOK AT THE END OF THE WORLD AND
WHY IT WASN'T AS NIGH AS WE
THOUGHT IN 2002
The Express, (London), 31 December 2002
13) AND FINALLY: TODAY'S VISIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF TOMORROW
The New York Times, 4 January 2002
==========
(1) ASTEROID TO PASS BY EARTH ON ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS
>From Sify News, 7 January 2002
http://news.sify.com/cgi-bin/sifynews/news/content/news_fullstory_v2.jsp?article_oid=12391249&category_oid=-20607&page_no=1
Moscow, 6 January 2002
A 60-meter asteroid, Number 2002 AA29, which might become a small
moon for
the Earth in future, will fly by our planet on the day of
Orthodox Christmas
Tuesday, researchers at the Astronomy Institute under the Russian
Academy of
Sciences have said.
Orthodox Christmas is celebrated by Christians of Russian and
Serbian
Churches and the monks of Mount Athos in Greece who follow the
old Julian
calendar.
Astronomers will watch this 'small planet' through a telescope
because it is
of the 12-20th class of stellar magnitude, RIA Novosti quoted
Sergei
Barabanov, a researcher at the institute, as saying yesterday.
The naked eye can see a celestial body of only up to 6th stellar
magnitude,
he said.
Foreign astrophysicists believe that by the year 2600, this
asteroid, whose
orbit will never intersect with the Earth's, may approach the
Earth so
closely that under the impact of terrestrial gravity it will be
'caught' by
our planet and become a 'small Moon'.
Eleven 'small bodies' will fly by the Earth this January,
Barabanov said,
adding that on January 1 and 4 two asteroids, dozens of meters in
size, flew
by it.
===========
(2) INTERNATIONAL SPACE AND ASTRONOMY CENTRE TO BE BUILT ON
MERSEYSIDE
>From Liverpool John Moores University News, December 2002
http://cwis.livjm.ac.uk/jmunews/templates/template1.asp?ref=200212201443360254787600000000
Experts from JMU's Astrophysics Research Institute (ARI) are
planning to
unravel the mysteries of the Universe through a unique astronomy
centre to
be built on the banks of the River Mersey.
The Government Office North West has approved the crucial part of
a package
of funding totalling £8 million for the International Space and
Astronomy
Centre (IASC), a project initiated by Mersey Ferries with its
parent
Merseytravel and JMU. It now awaits a final green light from the
Department
of Culture, Media and Sport in London.
The Centre will create a major new space-themed educational
attraction for
all the family. It is predicted to become one of the finest
tourist
attractions in Europe and will be a centrepiece of regeneration
on the
Wirral waterfront.
ARI's National Schools' Observatory will also be based in the
Centre,
providing schoolchildren with the opportunity to learn about
science using
technology previously reserved for professional astronomers. The
JMU
Liverpool telescope, currently being assembled on La Palma, will
act as a
central resource for young astronomers.
"This is fantastic news. It looks like we'll have
lift-off in the very near
future," said Professor Mike Bode, Head of ARI. "Our
expertise will provide
the public the very latest information surrounding new
discoveries and
developments in the field of astronomy and space science."
The exhibits within the IASC will use special visual effects,
interactive
tools, virtual reality 3D experiences and theatrical
presentations. The
centre will include a replica of Newton's laboratory and journeys
through
space and time. There will also be a series of special events
held
throughout the year, such as 'star-gazers' evenings and public
talks.
ARI's Mike Simcoe, Project Manager (National Schools'
Observatory) said that
some of the exhibits and information would be directly linked to
the
National Curriculum. "We'll be taking people on a journey of
discovery," he
said. "From Mars to beyond the Milky Way, we aim to fire the
enthusiasm of
young people by providing a stimulating learning environment
outside of the
classroom."
Building work is due to start in January with the Centre's doors
eventually
opening in 2004.
============
(3) ANNOUNCEMENT OF ROSETTA LAUNCH DELAY
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
ESA Science News
http://sci.esa.int
06 Jan 2003
Announcement of Rosetta launch delay
The launch date for Rosetta, ESA's mission to a comet, has been
delayed by a
few days. The inquiry board appointed by Arianespace, the
European Space
Agency, and CNES (France's National Space Agency) to investigate
the anomaly
observed during Flight 157 on 11 December 2002 is continuing to
examing the
potential impact on preparations for the forthcoming Rosetta
mission.
The inquiry board will submit its final report to Arianespace on
Monday 6
January 2003. Until then, all irreversible operations involved in
the
Rosetta launch have been suspended. This will result in a launch
postponement of several days beyond the targeted date of Sunday
12 January
2003. A new launch date will be announced on Saturday 11 January
2003.
USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS STORY
* More about Rosetta
http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/
IMAGE CAPTION:
[ http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=13&cid=12&oid=31284&ooid=28371
]
Artist's impression of the Rosetta orbiter and lander
approaching Comet Wirtanen.
=============
(4) ROCKET INQUIRY TO REPORT AS ROSETTA LAUNCH REMAINS DOUBTFUL
>From BBC, 6 January 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2630885.stm
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter
European space officials are preparing back-up plans in case a
flagship
mission has to be postponed, BBC News Online has learned.
The £600m Rosetta mission to orbit and land on a comet faces a
delay of
weeks or even months following a failed rocket launch in
December.
Europe's new super rocket, the Ariane 5-ESCA, exploded over the
Atlantic on
its maiden flight, casting a shadow on the daring project.
An independent investigation into the loss is due to report on
Monday.
Meanwhile, Arianespace, the company that operates Europe's
rockets from the
Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, has suspended flight
preparations.
No compromise
Rosetta must leave Earth by the end of January if it is to reach
its
destination, comet Wirtanen, an icy space rock which orbits the
planet
Jupiter.
It had been scheduled to launch on 12 January but has been
delayed by a few
days at least.
Scientists fear it could miss its launch window altogether,
forcing a delay
of months or even years, and no second chance to visit comet
Wirtanen.
Professor David Southwood, director of science at the European
Space Agency,
said he was confident that another target comet could be found,
in the worst
case scenario.
This would mean additional costs and a lengthy delay to ensure
the science
of the original mission was not compromised.
He told BBC News Online: "Although it will cost us money
we're not about to
take any risk on the best part of a billion euros investment on
the grounds
of not risking another few tens of millions."
New targets
Professor Southwood said a number of new comets have been
discovered in
recent years that are worthy of scientific scrutiny.
"In terms of finding a potential new target and being able
to do everything
that the mission requires, I'm fairly confident I will be able to
find a new
target," he said.
"My concern will be to try to make sure we balance the
additional
expenditure of money against making sure that we get the science
we were
going to get."
He said he was hopeful that the launch would go ahead as planned
in January.
Engineers hope that the fault can be traced to new components in
the super
rocket.
This would clear Rosetta to fly on the standard version of the
rocket.
Arianespace said a new launch date for Rosetta would be announced
on January
11.
A media conference about the mission planned by British
scientists on Monday
has been postponed.
Copyright 2002, BBC
============
(5) REINING IN THE COSMIC SERPENTS: LANDING ON A COMET
>From UPI Science News, 5 January 2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021214-120020-6133r
By Irene Brown
>From the Science & Technology Desk
>From the jungles of Kourou, French Guiana, to the surface of
a comet -- that
is the journey laid out for a robot probe called Rosetta, which
scientists
hope will be a key to decoding the early solar system.
Rosetta's name recalls the efforts by French linguist
Jean-François
Champollion, who studied the etched translations on the Rosetta
Stone and
helped to unlock the meaning of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs for
modern
archaeologists.
"Comets are thought to have provided the waters on Earth and
the organics,
said Alan Stern with the Southwest Research Institute of Boulder,
Colo., and
a collaborator on the European-led mission. "We're all made
from comet stuff
-- that's the going paradigm and whether it's right or wrong
we'll determine
by making a series of studies of comets."
Rosetta's journey will be long and arduous. Scheduled to be
hoisted into
orbit aboard a heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket in mid-January, the
three-ton
spacecraft will fly first to Mars and then back to Earth, using
gravitational momentum from the planets to slingshot itself
farther into
space. After close encounter with asteroid Otawara in 2006,
another swing
around Earth and a quick look at asteroid Siwa in 2008, Rosetta
will reach
its final destination: Comet Wirtanen, a celestial snowball less
than
three-quarters of a mile in diameter that contains leftovers from
the
creation of the solar system.
"It's material from an almost perfect morgue," said
Stern.
The primordial sample will not be an easy catch. By the time
Rosetta catches
up with Wirtanen, in November 2011, it will be nearly as far away
from the
sun as Jupiter and barreling toward the inner solar system at
about 84,000
mph, or 23 miles per second.
After braking to put itself into orbit, Rosetta will spend two
years mapping
the comet's surface and using a sophisticated array of remote
sensing tools
to analyze dust and vapors. For its closing act, Rosetta will
hover about a
half-mile above the comet and release a lander. As to what it
might find,
scientists said they have no idea what to expect.
"No one has ever tried to land on a comet before," said
project scientist
Gerhard Schwehm. "We don't know anything about how rough the
surface is. It
could be covered with fluffy snow like the Alps or it could be
rocks and
craters."
One thing is certain, he added, "that it will not be smooth
and flat like a
parking lot."
The lander is designed to stay upright on a slope of up to about
30 degrees.
Upon touchdown, a harpoon will be fired to anchor the probe and
keep it from
bouncing -- gravity on the comet is practically nonexistent. The
lander's
legs then will screw themselves down into the surface to secure
the craft in
place.
After that, Rosetta's science team will be working fast. With
about 60 hours
of battery power and an unknown amount of solar power, the lander
will work
through a series of experiments to learn about the comet's
composition,
including experiments that might help determine if comets did
indeed seed
life on Earth.
"We're really just little babies crawling around with no
real views of the
world," said Stern. "Anything we learn will take us a
long way."
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
===========
(6) SMALL ASTEROID PLAYS CAT-AND MOUSE GAME WITH EARTH
>From Associated Press, 5 January 2003
http://www.cbs2ny.com/national/OrbitalTag-aa/resources_news_html
By PAUL RECER
AP Science Writer
SEATTLE (AP) In a space game of ``catch me if you can,'' a small
asteroid
shares the same orbit with Earth sometimes ahead, sometimes
behind, but
never quite touching as the two race around the sun, astronomers
say.
``This is one of the most interesting orbits for an asteroid we
have ever
seen,'' said Paul Chodas, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher
who studies
asteroids and who first plotted the bizarre motion of the space
rock.
The asteroid, called 2002 AA29, is in a precise circular orbit
that follows
the same general path as the Earth around the sun. But, like a
mouse teasing
a cat, the asteroid sometimes speeds up and precedes the Earth
and then
later slows to drop into a follow-the-leader approach.
But never will the two meet, Chodas says.
On Wednesday, the asteroid makes its closest approach to the
Earth in almost
a century, moving within 3.7 million miles.
``For a number of decades the asteroid has been going a little
slower than
the Earth and the Earth has been catching up,'' Chodas said in a
telephone
interview. ``This week it makes its closest approach in 95
years.''
Chodas said that during the close approach, the Earth's gravity
will cause
the asteroid to swing into a slightly lower orbit, which will
make it move
faster than the Earth.
The asteroid will continue moving ahead until, in 95 years, it
approaches
the Earth from behind. Gravity then will force the asteroid into
a higher,
slower orbit and the Earth will move ahead. In another 95 years,
the Earth
approaches from behind and the cycle is repeated.
``There's no possibility that this asteroid could hit Earth
because Earth's
gravity rebuffs its periodic advances and keeps it at bay,'' said
Don
Yeomans, head of a NASA asteroid program at JPL, in a statement.
``The
asteroid and Earth take turns sneaking up on each other, but they
never get
too close.''
A computer simulation suggests that in about 600 years, the
pattern will
change slightly.
Chodas said the asteroid will loop about the Earth, but never
will become a
true satellite that actually orbits the planet. After about 40
years, it
will drop back into its earlier pattern and the cat-and-mouse
game will
continue for many more centuries.
The asteroid is only about 200 feet across, too small to be
easily seen. It
was discovered last year by an Air Force telescope that is part
of a NASA
program to find and plot asteroids that orbit near the Earth.
Even if 2002 AA29 did hit the Earth it would not cause planetwide
destruction as did the 6-mile-wide asteroid that hit and killed
the
dinosaurs some 23 million years ago.
Instead, said Chodas, the small asteroid would gouge out a crater
about
three-quarters of a mile across, similar to the Barringer meteor
crater in
Arizona.
Asteroid observations are among the 1,000 studies to be presented
this week
at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
On the Net:
American Astronomical Society: www.aas.org
Asteroid observations: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov
Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
============
(7) INDIAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR EFFORTS TO DESTROY ASTEROID 1950DA
>From Vishnu Reddy <vishnureddy@hotmail.com>
Dear sir,
I hope CCNet readers will find this interesting.
clear skies
Vishnu Vardhan
www.spaceguardindia.com
Indian President for efforts to destroy asteroid 1950DA
Bangalore, Jan. 4: (PTI) President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Saturday
called for
a combined global effort to deflect or destroy asteroid 1950DA
which has the
probability of impacting the earth one in 300 on March 16 in the
year 2880.
"The impact probability calculations indicate a serious
condition of one in
300," Mr Kalam told a Space Summit organised as part of 90th
session of
Indian Science Congress here.
"In such a crucial condition, we should aim to deflect or
destroy this
asteroid with technology available with mankind," Mr Kalam
stressed. The
problem belongs to space technology community, the President said
adding it
needs political support and international cooperation to destroy
such
asteroids. The Space community, he said, has to keep monitoring
the dynamics
of all potentially dangerous asteroids.
Note: Currently India has no active asteroid programme, though a
lot of
claims and promises have been made by professionals and
politicians.
==========
(8) SURPRISE COMET STREAKS INTO SOLAR SYSTEM
National Geographic News, 19 December 2002
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1219_021219_comet.html
Astronomers have received a holiday bonanza in the form of the
arrival of a
previously unknown comet that has entered our part of the solar
system.
The comet was discovered by a Japanese amateur astronomer, Tetuo
Kudo, early
on the morning of December 14, said Clay Sherrod, an astronomer
with the
Arkansas Sky laboratory.
"In mid- to late-January the comet will be favorably placed
for early risers
in the northern hemisphere and will probably be visible to the
naked eye, at
least toward the end of that month," Sherrod said.
"Certainly binoculars
will aid in spotting the comet and exposing any tail that it
might show."
Named Kudo-Fujikawa (and officially designated C/2002 X5), the
comet is
moving east-southeast through the constellation Hercules.
Halley's comet orbits the Earth every 76 years, and its next
scheduled
visitation is in 2061. Astronomers hope that the newly discovered
comet,
C/2002 X5 Kudo-Fujikawa, will provide an equally impressive show
for viewers
here on Earth.
"The comet is a swift-moving object and currently is easily
visible in the
northeastern skies during pre-dawn hours, showing a pretty
distinct tail and
large coma (head or halo, caused by the emanation of gases and
other
materials as the comet warms up on its approach to the sun). The
tail
appears to be slightly less than one-half degree and several
spikes in this
tail have been recorded (on December 15) by imagers in New
Mexico," Sherrod
said.
The jury is still out regarding just what kind of show
Kudo-Fujikawa would
provide Earth-based viewers when it is closest to the sun, but
there is a
prospect that it would be a "textbook comet," Sherrod
said. "However, the
visibility during its greatest brilliance...will be greatly
hampered because
of the comet's angle of approach to the sun and the
Earth-sun-comet
positioning during that period."
Towards the end of January, the comet will be approaching the sun
and
swinging behind it from Earth's vantage point, thus getting lower
and lower
each successive morning into early February.
"In February the comet will be more favorably placed for
observers in the
southern hemisphere, and there are some estimates that suggest
that the
comet could attain a brightness equal to the bright planet Venus
(a
magnitude of less than 4)," Sherrod said.
Magnitude is a measure of brightness used by astronomers. The
lower the
magnitude value of an object, the brighter that object is.Objects
that shine
with a magnitude of less than 6 are usually visible with the
naked eye.
Kudo-Fujikawa is currently being seen at a magnitude of between 7
and 8.
Much of what Earth will be able to see of Kudo-Fujikawa is
contingent on the
activity that occurs when it is closest to its pass by the sun
(perihelion)
on January 28, 2003, Sherrod said. At that point it will be only
16 million
miles (25 million kilometers) from the sun. The average distance
of the
Earth from the sun is 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
"The retrograde orbit (meaning the comet is coming in at an
opposite
direction in relation to the orbits of the primary planets) of
this comet
and its close pass from the sun at that time have suggested to
many, myself
included, that the comet might potentially break up from solar
radiation and
solar wind. If this does indeed occur, then we might expect more
volatile
activity from this object than if it passes perihelion totally
intact and
unscathed.
"Now, if this does happen, then we might expect an
incredible comet to be
visible as the inner, more volatile and rare gases are exposed to
solar
radiation," Sherrod said.
Copyright 2002, National Geographic
==========
(9) 'NO WATER' ON MARS
>From The Australian, 6 January 2002
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5803067%255E1702,00.html
A MELBOURNE geologist believes he's put a dent in NASA's plans to
send an
expedition to Mars to search for life.
University of Melbourne planetary scientist Nick Hoffman has
identified
gully and channel development near the polar regions of Mars from
images
taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.
However, contrary to popular scientific opinion, Dr Hoffmann said
the flow
was most likely frozen carbon dioxide, not liquid water.
Dr Hoffman said the area he had monitored recorded temperatures
as low as
minus 130 degrees centigrade, a temperature water could not flow
at.
"These flows cannot possibly be water," Dr Hoffman told
AAP.
He said his findings, published in the latest edition of the
journal
Astrobiology, would have serious impacts on the ongoing search
for life on
Mars.
His research presents evidence that substances other than water
can flow on
Mars and that water is probably the least likely substance to do
so.
"Without water we cannot have life," Dr Hoffman said.
"Despite recent
reports of more and more ice on the red planet, NASA has yet to
find liquid
water."
Dr Hoffman, who has been studying Mars for about five years, said
his
research had been an uphill battle, but he had made significant
progress
with carbon dioxide models.
"People at NASA don't want to hear that there's no water on
Mars," he said.
"They want it to be `Mars is a wet planet, we'll just go
there and dig up
some fossils and bring them back'.
"If these findings are generally accepted it will impact on
NASA's mission.
They'll no longer focus on the gullies, they'll have to find
somewhere
else."
Dr Hoffman said he was particularly proud that the discovery had
been made
by Australian researchers working on a shoestring budget.
Copyright 2002, The Australian
==========
(10) NEAR-EARTH SUPERNOVAS
>From NASA Science News, 6 January 2003
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/06jan_bubble.htm?list20392
A new NASA mission will soon leave Earth to study the remains of
some
uncomfortably close supernova explosions.
January 6, 2003: Australopithecus squinted at the blue African
sky. He had
never seen a star in broad daylight before, but he could see one
today.
White. Piercing. Not as bright as the Sun, yet much more than a
full moon.
Was it dangerous? He stared for a long time, puzzled, but nothing
happened,
and after a while he strode across the savanna unconcerned.
Millions of years later, we know better.
"That star was a supernova, one of many that exploded in our
part of the
galaxy during the past 10 million years," says astronomer
Mark Hurwitz of
the University of California-Berkeley.
Supernovas near Earth are rare today, but during the Pliocene era
of
Australopithecus supernovas happened more often. Their source was
an
interstellar cloud called "Sco-Cen" that was slowly
gliding by the solar
system. Within it, dense knots coalesced to form short-lived
massive stars,
which exploded like popcorn.
Researchers estimate (with considerable uncertainty) that a
supernova less
than 25 light years away would extinguish much of the life on
Earth. The
blast needn't incinerate our planet. All it would take is enough
cosmic rays
to damage the ozone layer and let through lethal doses of
ultraviolet (UV)
radiation. Our ancestors survived the Pliocene blasts only
because the
supernovas weren't quite so close.
We know because we can still see the cloud today. It's 450 light
years from
Earth and receding in the direction of the constellations
Scorpius and
Centaurus (hence the cloud's name, "Sco-Cen").
Astronomer Jesús
Maíz-Apellániz of Johns Hopkins University recently backtracked
Sco-Cen's
motion and measured its closest approach: 130 light years away
about 5
million years ago.
Sco-Cen was still nearby only two million years ago when many
plankton,
mollusks, and other UV-sensitive marine creatures on Earth
mysteriously
died. Paleontologists mark it as the transition between the
Pliocene and
Pleistocene epochs. Around the same time, according to German
scientists who
have examined deep-sea sediments from the Pliocene era, Earth was
peppered
with Fe60, an isotope produced by supernova explosions.
Coincidence?
No one knows. It's a puzzle researchers are still piecing
together.
Reconstructing the history of near-Earth supernovas is difficult
because old
supernovas are elusive. Their glowing shells fade to invisibility
in not
much more than a million years. Neutron stars, the collapsed
cores of
supernova progenitors, last longer, but they are flung across the
galaxy by
asymmetries in the explosion. Unusual isotopes of iron, like the
ones that
coincide with the marine extinction, are difficult to find buried
under
millions of years of sediments.
There is, however, one obvious relic: "All those explosions
blew an enormous
bubble in the interstellar medium," says Hurwitz, "and
we're inside it."
Astronomers call it "the Local Bubble." It's
peanut-shaped, about 300 light
years long, and filled with almost nothing. Gas inside the bubble
is very
thin (0.001 atoms per cubic centimeter) and very hot (a million
degrees)--that's 1000 times less dense and 100 to 100,000 times
hotter than
ordinary interstellar material.
The Local Bubble was discovered gradually in the 1970's and
1980's. Optical
and radio astronomers looked carefully for interstellar gas in
our part of
the galaxy, but couldn't find much in Earth's neighborhood.
Furthermore,
there seemed to be a pileup of gas--like the shell of a
bubble--about 150
light years away. Meanwhile, x-ray astronomers were getting their
first look
at the sky using orbiting satellites, which revealed a
million-degree x-ray
glow coming from all directions. "We eventually realized
that the solar
system was inside a hot, vacuous bubble," says Hurwitz.
Perhaps as soon as this week, NASA plans to launch a
satellite--the Cosmic
Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer, or "CHIPS"--to
study the Local Bubble.
"There's a great deal we don't know about it," says
Hurwitz, who is the
mission's chief scientist. How old is the bubble? What is its
internal
geography? How fast is it cooling? Data from CHIPS will help
answer these
questions.
CHIPS will orbit Earth and peer into the bubble using an
ultraviolet (UV)
telescope. "The gas in the bubble is very bright at extreme
UV wavelengths
around 170 Å," explains Hurwitz. Other satellites have
examined such UV
light from the bubble, but CHIPS is better. It has a spectrometer
on board
with 100 channels ranging from 90 Å to 260 Å. "The
spectrometer is the key,"
he says.
Like sediments in the Pacific Ocean, gas in the Local Bubble
contains
supernova-produced iron. "Iron atoms in the bubble have lost
many of their
electrons--knocked loose by collisions within the hot gas."
CHIPS's
spectrometer will be able to detect spectral lines from iron
atoms missing
8, 9, 10 and 11 electrons, respectively. By comparing the
intensity of those
four spectra lines, researchers can map the temperature and
density of gas
in the bubble.
"If we find a hot spot," says Hurwitz, "that might
be the location of the
most recent supernova." The spectra will also tell
researchers how fast the
gas is cooling and thus how old different parts of the bubble
might be. A
fast-cooling knot of gas which is still hot must be pretty young,
for
example.
Exploring the internal geography of the bubble is important
because what
lies inside could affect our planet's future.
During the past few million years, wispy filaments of
interstellar gas have
drifted into the Local Bubble. Our solar system is immersed in
one of those
filaments--the "local fluff," a relatively cool (7000
K) cloud containing
0.1 atoms per cubic centimeter. By galactic standards, the local
fluff is
not very substantial. It has little effect on Earth because the
solar wind
and the Sun's magnetic field are able to hold the wispy cloud at
bay.
There are, however, denser clouds out there. The Sco-Cen complex,
for
instance, is sending a stream of interstellar
"cloudlets" in our direction.
"Some of those cloudlets might be hundreds of times denser
than the local
fluff," says Priscilla Frisch, an astrophysicist at the
University of
Chicago who studies the local interstellar medium. "If we
ran into one, it
would compress the Sun's magnetic field and allow more cosmic
rays to
penetrate the inner solar system, with unknown effects on climate
and life."
CHIPS will be able to locate dense interstellar clouds by the
shadows they
cast. Cool clouds are partially opaque to the bubble's UV glow,
so they will
appear as darker areas in CHIPS maps. Hurwitz notes that the
mission's first
sky maps will be rather coarse, with a resolution of 5o x 25o.
(The bowl of
the Big Dipper, for comparison, is about 10 degrees wide.) Only
the largest
clouds would appear in those. Later, if the mission is extended
beyond its
first year, CHIPS will have time to produce sharper maps with 5o
x 6o
resolution.
Frisch has noted that Homo Sapiens arose only after the local
interstellar
medium was cleared out. Fewer clouds to run into would promote a
stabler
climate for our planet, she argues. So perhaps what
Australopithecus saw was
a good omen, after all....
CHIPS will help us find out.
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(11) HAPPY NEW YEAR
>From Anatoly V. Zaitsev <pdc@berc.rssi.ru>
Dear Dr. Peiser,
I wish to express my sincere congratulation with Christmas and
the New Year.
I wish you further success in your work and personal happiness.
With kind
regards and best wishes to yourself and CCNet members for the New
Year.
I want to inform you that we could make a small step forward to
creation of
the Planetary Defense System (PDS). Recently, a number of
enterprises of our
missile/space and other industries established the Planetary
Defense Center.
The "Citadel" PDS Conceptual project was set as a base
of its activity.
I look forward to cooperating with you and CCNet members on this
project.
With best wishes,
Anatoly V. Zaitsev
Director General
of the Planetary Defense Center
mailto:pdc@berc.rssi.ru
=============
(12) UNDER THE BOTTOM LINE: BREATHE EASY, WE HAVE MANAGED TO
ESCAPE THE
APOCALYPSE AGAIN.
A WRY LOOK AT THE END OF THE WORLD AND WHY IT WASN'T AS NIGH AS
WE THOUGHT
IN 2002
>From The Express, (London), 31 December 2002
IT'S THE last day of the year and you may not realise it but
we're all
pretty lucky to still be here. No, I don't mean you've done well
to survive
10 consecutive days of Christmas hangover to large it up another
day.
I'm talking serious doom, a Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse-type,
Armageddon
scenario.
According to those odd chaps who stroll up and down High Streets
wearing
long coats and sandwich boards proclaiming: "The End is
nigh", the world has
been about to go kaput for donkey's years. A few years ago there
was a cult
which announced that after a certain day (in August, I think it
was -
possibly Bank Holiday weekend, so at least we'd all be relaxed),
the world
would be no more. They were wrong, of course; the only thing they
died of
that day was embarrassment.
But the end was never more nigh than in 2002. It wasn't just the
usual doom
mongers and loonies saying so; geologists, astronomers and other
scientists
were taking a less fanciful view of the prospects of annihilation
by meteor,
tidal wave, volcanic eruption, earthquake or a combination of all
of the
above.
You may not have taken the boffins seriously but someone else
did: insurance
companies. Munich Re urged the industry to start calculating
premiums to
cover meteor crashes. "Simply pointing to the presumable
rarity of such
events should no longer suffice in the light of recent
experience."
The term "recent" in this context is relative. A
meteorite was thought to
have crashed into the earth in a remote forest in Siberia in
October.
This is recent in human terms. In 1908, what was probably a small
comet
flattened thousands of square miles of the Tanguska forest in
Siberia; this
is very recent in cosmic terms. And before you start feeling
sorry for
Siberia, consider the devastation if the comet had struck London,
which is
on the same latitude and only eight time zones away. If 94 years
are but a
blip in time, how infinitesimally minute is eight hours?
WHERE 16 years and 31 days falls in this scale of time measuring
is hard to
say but that's exactly how nigh The End is, according to the
astronomers and
computers at the Linear Observatory in New Mexico. They
calculated that a
tiny (by cosmic standards) asteroid spotted last July travelling
at 28km per
second would, if it maintained its current orbit, collide with
the earth on
February 1, 2019.
The impact would be enough to wipe out a continent. It would
leave a dent
the size of Britain in the earth's surface and the jolt would
throw up
enough debris to cover the world in perpetual cloud, bringing a
nuclear
winter and sparking massive tsunamis. These would build up, as
they rippled
across oceans, and engulf entire land masses.
The asteroid was christened 2002 NT7, which seems a very downbeat
name for a
phenomenon that reaches the earth only once in every couple of
million
years, making it not so much a once in a lifetime experience as a
once in
the history of mankind experience. Then, after doing some more
sums, the
boffins announced they had been a little out and the asteroid
would not hit
us until February 1, 2060. (Strange that they could be 41 years
out on the
year, yet still be so sure of the day).
Then they tapped on their computer keyboards some more and said
that er,
actually, they had got it QUITE wrong and 2002 NT7 would not be
hitting
earth at all. In fact, it would miss by 32,000 miles. This is a
near miss
for asteroids but it's still 32,000 miles, for goodness sake.
There was another near miss last July when an asteroid measuring
100 yards
wide missed us by 75,000 miles. What do you mean, you didn't
know? Didn't
you feel the breeze as it whizzed past?
The heavens are filled with thousands of asteroids, meteorites
and other
bits of space debris. The vast majority never come anywhere near
the earth -
nor were ever likely to.
But instead of seeing good odds, the experts see only that our
luck is bound
to run out.
If it's not space junk, it's tsunamis - waves as tall as
skyscrapers,
swallowing anything in their path.
In August, scientists warned that a tidal wave would be triggered
in the
Canaries by the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano.
BUT maritime experts say freak waves are not uncommon; a boat
disappears in
the maw of a wall of water about once a month. Yet scientists are
still not
sure about what causes them, beyond citing "unstable
conditions".
Despite these almost limitless variables, we do still seem to be
entering a
sci-fi kind of mood.
Doomsday scenarios once confined to potboilers are seriously
debated.
Two years ago, the Government set up a task force to decide what
they should
do about countering the danger from Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
The group
recommended a sophisticated, international network of telescopes.
What we
got was an information centre in Leicester - more Blake's Seven
than Deep
Impact.
Yesterday, it was announced that the police and armed forces are
to be
granted special powers in the event of terrorist attack. They
would be able
to quarantine large sections of major cities if they are deemed
at risk from
biological weapons, and organise the evacuation of populations.
Following
the attack on the Twin Towers, the University of Portsmouth is
launching a
degree course in calamity management.
There is a biblical resonance in some of the natural disasters
visited upon
the world this year. During the flooding of Prague and Venice,
wasn't there
something in the rescue operation to save works of art that
recalled the
animals going two by two into Noah's Ark, to be brought out again
when it
was all over?
After suffering 22 years of manmade and natural disasters, in
April 2002,
Afghanistan was struck by a plague of locusts. With Pestilence
joining the
already present War, Famine and Death, that makes it a full set
of the Book
of Revelations' Four Horsemen of the Apocaplyse for that
benighted country.
In Sicily, Mount Etna erupted.
Already plagued by floods and earthquakes, the Catholic Italians
must have
wondered if God was roaring his displeasure through the mouth of
the
volcano.
The first six months of 2002 brought the warmest weather ever
recorded in
the northern hemisphere. Turbulence in the Pacific heralded
another El Nino.
In America, 1,500 people died in heatwaves; for them, summer
really must
have been like hell on earth.
And as we welcome in the New Year, our Government is more
determined than
ever to send our armed forces to war against a country that may
or may not
unleash germ warfare against us.
Meanwhile, Korea makes no secret of its nuclear ambitions.
So why worry about annihilation coming from outer space when it
is just as
likely to come from much closer. As asteroid watchers know, a few
thousand
miles is just a hair's breadth away.
Copyright 2002, The Express
======
(13) AND FINALLY: TODAY'S VISIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF
TOMORROW
>From The New York Times, 4 January 2002
At the end of every year, John Brockman, a literary agent and the
publisher
of Edge.org, a Web site devoted to science, poses a question to
leading
scientists, writers and futurists. In 2002, he asked respondents
to imagine
that they had been nominated as White House science adviser and
that
President Bush had sought their answer to "What are the
pressing scientific
issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on
how I can
begin to deal with them?" Here are excerpts of some of the
responses.
Mapping the Planet
Over the last decade, the human genome project has laid the
foundation for a
comprehensive understanding of human biology. The translation of
the new
understanding into cures for human diseases will be a slow and
difficult
process.
Meanwhile, a new century has begun. It is time to begin a bold
new
initiative in biology: a planetary genome sequencing project to
identify all
the segments of the genomes of all the millions of species that
live
together on the planet.
This would require, first, the aggressive development of new
technology for
deciphering genes, comparable to the development of computer
technology
during the last half century, so that the cost of sequencing
genes can
continue to fall as rapidly as the cost of computing.
The goal would be to complete the sequencing of the biosphere
within less
than half a century, at a cost comparable with the cost of the
human genome.
This project would bring an enormous increase in understanding of
the
ecology of the planet, which could then be translated into
practical
measures to sustain and improve the environment while allowing
continued
rapid economic development. It could also lead to the
stabilization of the
atmosphere and the climate. Let this century be the century of
cures for
planetary as well as human diseases.
-- Freeman Dyson, retired professor of physics, Institute for
Advanced
Study, Princeton, N.J.
Professor PlayStation
While American schools are notoriously underserving their
students, American
children are rushing home from class to learn how to succeed in
the
alternative universes of video games. They spend dozens of hours
every week
exploring virtual worlds, each with its own set of rules. Barring
a complete
overhaul of our schools, makers of game systems like Nintendo and
PlayStation will continue to be the most successful institutions
when it
comes to captivating young minds.
South Korea has already figured this out. More than 60 percent of
Korean
homes have broadband Internet access -- and online, multiplayer
role-playing
games are immensely popular. Recently, the largest Korean
textbook
distributor and an independent software designer joined forces to
make such
a game in which children study math, science and history.
Here in the United States, the Army is using video games to reach
teenagers.
With a $7 million budget, it is building a series of games to be
made
available as a free download over the Web. The first title,
"America's
Army," helps players learn about war tactics by requiring
them to rush
through shooter missions armed with guns and grenades.
But where are the games created to teach young Americans civilian
skills?
While televisions and slide shows play a large role in
classrooms, video
games are still appallingly underused. Let's match the money and
effort
spent on "America's Army" to develop freely available
games that teach about
math and science, history and citizenship.
--Justin Hall, electronic entertainment journalist and creator of
the Web
site Justin's Links.
Little Geniuses
We need more support for the most productive, and most
underfinanced,
scientific community in the country. These scientists and
educators do more
to provide the basic intellectual infrastructure of the nation
than any
other group. Every year they make fundamental discoveries in
physics,
biology, mathematics and psychology, as well as ensure that the
discoveries
of previous generations of scientists are passed on to future
generations.
Yet they typically receive salaries of zero to $15,000 a year,
and 16
percent are below the poverty line. Most of the science educators
in this
group actually make major financial sacrifices to do their work.
They
receive less federal and state support than any other part of the
scientific
community -- no grants, no scholarships, no research and
development
write-offs.
These unsung geniuses, are, of course, children under five and
the many
women (and a few men) who take care of them. This may seem like a
motherhood
issue; well, actually, it is a motherhood issue. But it's sound
science
policy too. Give our children what all scientists need --lunch,
the right
toys, a safe place to play, interesting problems to solve and
someone to
talk to, and watch them invent a new world.
-- Alison Gopnik, author of "The Scientist in the Crib: What
Early Learning
Tells Us About the Mind."
Think Small
The United States has been increasing its research efforts in a
broad field
called nanotechnology. Nanotechnology -- its name comes from the
Greek work
for dwarf -- refers to mechanical engineering on a molecular
scale.
Technology based on molecular manufacturing will lead to computer
systems a
billion times more powerful than what we have today, aerospace
vehicles with
98 percent less structural mass, and medical tools that can
repair tissues,
organs and cells at a microscopic level.
Molecular manufacturing will be based on molecular machine
systems able to
manipulate and assemble molecular components to make larger
products. If you
look in a conventional factory today, you will see electronic
devices
sensing and controlling processes, but the actual work shaping,
moving and
assembling parts is done by machines that, quite naturally, use
moving parts
to move parts.
Yet today's research programs are not focused on developing the
molecular
machine technologies essential to molecular manufacturing.
Researchers often
see any machinery as somehow archaic, left over from the 19th
century. Thus
interest in topics like biotechnology and microelectronics has
diverted
resources into short-term efforts that are worth doing, but not
at the
expense of neglecting the long-term promise of nanotechnology.
--K. Eric Drexler, founder of the Foresight Institute and author
of
"Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and
Computation; Unbounding
the Future."
Science Without Secrets
My advice is to keep science public. Secret knowledge, no matter
how
laboriously acquired, is less than science.
Some knowledge, of course, must remain secret for the security of
the
nation. But unless there is a clear security risk, publish all
else. Why?
Science belongs to the people: they pay for it; they benefit from
it. The
benefits of scientific knowledge accrue far more rapidly when
that knowledge
lies open for all to see, to test and to try.
In my field, quantum computation, openness is beneficial. Quantum
mechanics
is famously weird, and one of the consequences of quantum
weirdness is that
even a small quantum computer, consisting of a few thousand
atoms, has the
potential to break all existing public-key cryptosystems.
As a result, quantum computers pose a significant threat to the
security not
only of classified encoded material, but also of most commercial
transactions. Yet our national security agencies have elected to
award grant
money for quantum computing research with the stipulation that
the results
be published.
This is a wise policy. There is no doubt large-scale quantum
computers will
pose a risk to security. But they don't how exist, and
constructing them
will require the scientific and engineering community to solve
wide-ranging
problems of nanofabrication and control. The potential benefits
of such
research are a thousand times greater than any drawback from
potential
disruption to security.
-- Seth Lloyd, a professor of quantum-mechanical engineering at
the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Fending Off the Big One
As an astrophysicist, I admit that few issues in my trade could
be
considered pressing. However, there is one aspect of my work that
could have
deadly consequences -- or, more precisely, will have deadly
consequences if
it is ignored. Here is where heaven and Earth meet: in the
long-run
certainty that people will die from the effects of an asteroid,
large or
small, hitting the planet.
NASA has been discovering and tracking asteroids, but the
financing had not
been sufficient to catalog most of them, and no money had gone to
study how
an asteroid might be deflected, even though the technology has,
in
principle, been available.
Fortunately, it is rather straightforward to develop a spacecraft
that could
reach a 100-meter diameter asteroid and give it a nudge so that
it would
miss the earth. For example, scientists have made great strides
with plasma
engines -- which are much more effective than traditional
chemical engines
and use radio waves to heat their fuel and magnetic fields to
direct a
stream of ultrahot ionized gases -- which could be used as space
"tug
boats."
All we have to do is carry out a test mission in which we
demonstrate the
ability to significantly alter an asteroid's orbit. Then when we
discover an
asteroid with our name on it, we will be prepared. Plasma engine
advances
would also speed up human expansion into space. This initiative
could open
the door to populating other worlds while at the same time making
our own
world a safer place.
-- Piet Hut, astrophysicist, Institute of Advanced Study,
Princeton, N.J.
Intellectual Globalization
Both art and science address the most profound issues of the day
yet often
face each other across a great divide. A new National Institute
for Humanism
would encourage collaborations across the arts, humanities and
sciences in
tackling important questions about who and what we are. Call it
the
intellectual equivalent of globalization.
Milan Kundera once wrote that every novel offers some answer to
the
question. "What is human existence and wherein does its
poetry lie?" I
submit that so does every work of important science.
-- Nancy Etcoff, author and instructor in the department of
psychiatry at
the Harvard Medical School.
Cassandras of the Labs
Scientists are as much victims of fashion as ordinary mortals are
-- a fact
illustrated by the rich history of junk science and false alarms
of the last
30 years. Recall a few instances:
In the mid-1970's, many climatologists warned of an ice age that
would
severely diminish agricultural productivity by the year 2000.
In 1972, the United States banned DDT, only to find out, years
later, that
the evidence of the pesticide's harmful effects on human beings
is
inconclusive. In the meantime, millions of people -- 1 in 20
African
children, for example -- have died of malaria, as Europe and the
United
States remain reluctant to support controlling mosquitoes with
DDT.
And let's not forget the dire warnings about natural resources.
In the
1970's, we were told that there would be essentially no oil left
by the
1990's.
Science retains its alarmist streak today. The scuttlebutt among
the
scientists I know is that they have a better chance of getting a
government
or private grant if they indicate that their research might
uncover a
serious threat or problem. Media fascination with bad news is
partly to
blame, along with the principled gloominess and nagging of
nongovernmental
pressure groups. But government itself has played its natural
part.
The point is not to be cynical about science fads but to know
enough to
choose wisely when it comes to supporting pure science, along
with research
that can give us beneficial technologies.
-- Denis Dutton, Department of Philosophy, University of
Canterbury, New
Zealand.
Really Popular Science
I believe that if 1 percent of the money now being distributed
for science
went to research that was of real interest to taxpayers, science
would
become more popular.
At present, money generally goes to research sought by the
scientific
establishment, corporations and government bureaucracies. The
administration
of science is neither democratically accountable, nor carried out
in a
democratic spirit.
My proposal is that 99 percent of the research funds continue to
be
allocated in the usual way. But I suggest that 1 percent be spent
in a way
that reflects the curiosity of lay people, who pay for all
publicly financed
research through taxes. It would be necessary to create a
separate body. One
possible name would be the National Discovery Center.
The center would be governed by a board representing a wide range
of
interests, including nongovernmental organizations, schools and
voluntary
associations. Individuals could send suggestions in over the
Internet. Local
and national organizations could lobby for projects. Potential
subjects for
research could be discussed in the news media.
This new venture would make science more attractive to young
people,
stimulate interest in scientific thinking and hypothesis-testing,
and help
break down the depressing alienation many people feel from
science.
-- Rupert Sheldrake, author of "Dogs That Know When Their
Owners Are Coming
Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals."
Copyright (c) 2003 The New York Times. All rights reserved.
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