PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 29/2002 - 25 February 2002
--------------------------------
"Premier Tony Blair and US President George Bush are being
urged to
hold a summit to save the world - from asteroids. Scientists and
politicians fear an asteroid or comet could smash into our planet
and
destroy life on Earth. Astronomer and Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik is
trying to broker the summit on a danger he believes is even more
potent than
Osama Bin Laden. He said: "We must create an international
alliance
led by America and Britain to address the greatest ever threat to
civilisation."
--The Sunday People, 24 February 2002
"Life is risk. Some of those risks are too small to worry
about. For
instance, there is a risk that you will trip over your own two
feet, fall
down,and dislocate your finger. That risk is there, but it does
not stop
you from walking. At the other extreme, some risks are too big to
worry
about. For instance, there is the risk that a previously
unnoticed meteor
will destroy the earth tomorrow. Do you lose sleep planning how
to handle
that contingency? No. It is unmanageable."
--Insurance Industry, 18 February 2002
http://insurance.about.com/library/weekly/aariskmgmt021801.htm
"If dinosaurs adapted to such a variety of environments, how
did one
nuclear winter knock them off? Anyone who explains the whole
picture of
dinosaur extinction has to explain high- latitude
dinosaurs."
--Roland Gangloff, University of Alaska Museum, February 24,
2002
(1) DANGER OF A COMET CRASH MORE DANGEROUS THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN
The Sunday People, 24 February 2002
(2) MORE DOUBTS ABOUT K/T MASS EXTINCTION
Kerry Williams <kerry@spacegeeks.com>
(3) WHEN THE ASTEROID HIT, MOST PLANT-EATING BUGS DIED
Rocky Mountain News, 22 February 2002
(4) 'FUTURE EVOLUTION': ASTEROIDS ASIDE, WE'RE NOT VULNERABLE
The Seattle Times, 22 February 2002
(5) CRITICAL THERMAL TESTS BEGIN FOR ROSETTA CHASER
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(6) GALILEO ON CRASH COURSE
News24, 21 February 2001
(7) SCIENTISTS STUDY ARCTIC CRATER
Newsday, 24 February 2002
(8) COMET IKEYA-ZHANG
Mark Kidger <mrk@ll.iac.es>
(9) CCNet PHILOSOPHY?
Max Wallis <wallismk@Cardiff.ac.uk>
============
(1) DANGER OF A COMET CRASH MORE DANGEROUS THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN
>From The Sunday People, 24 February 2002
http://www.people.co.uk/
PREMIER Tony Blair and US President George Bush are being urged
to hold a
summit to save the world - from ASTEROIDS.
Scientists and politicians fear an asteroid or comet could smash
into our
planet and destroy life on Earth.
Astronomer and Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik is trying to broker the
summit on a
danger he believes is even more potent than Osama Bin Laden.
He said: "We must create an international alliance led by
America and
Britain to address the greatest ever threat to
civilisation."
He says the Star Wars project could be the answer.
Copyright 2002, The Sunday People
=========
(2) MORE DOUBTS ABOUT K/T MASS EXTINCTION
>From Kerry Williams <kerry@spacegeeks.com>
NORTH SLOPE DINOSAURS MAY CRUSH ASTEROID THEORY
>From The Anchorage Daily News, February 24, 2002
http://adn.com/opinion/story/770393p-822177c.html
By Ned Rozell
Alaska Science Columnist for The Anchorage Daily News
A colossal meteorite that slammed into Earth about 65 million
years ago may
have killed the dinosaurs, but there's a good chance it did not.
The proof
may be locked in the permafrost of Alaska's North Slope.
A 60-mile stretch of the Colville River holds layers of
well-preserved
dinosaur bones that researchers can't reach using conventional
methods.
Roland Gangloff and his colleagues hope to get funding soon to
mine the
permafrost for fossils and possibly unearth one of the greatest
riddles of
history -- what killed the dinosaurs?
Gangloff is earth science curator of the University of Alaska
Museum in
Fairbanks and an associate professor of geology and geophysics.
He teamed
with Australian colleagues Thomas Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich
to write a
paper on polar dinosaurs published in the Feb. 8, 2002 issue of
the journal
Science.
The far-north and far-south dinosaur hunters suggest that polar
dinosaurs
were some of the most adaptable creatures to ever live, perhaps
too
resilient to be killed by the affects of one giant
asteroid. The prevailing theory on the demise of the dinosaurs is
that a
meteorite struck Earth about 65 million years ago, kicking up
dust that
blocked the sun's rays and chilled the planet to
temperatures intolerable for dinosaurs.
"If dinosaurs adapted to such a variety of environments, how
did one nuclear
winter knock them off?" Gangloff said. "Anyone who
explains the whole
picture of dinosaur extinction has to explain high-latitude
dinosaurs."
Arctic dinosaurs first made the news in the early 1960s, when
geologists and
paleontologists found dinosaur footprints embedded in rock on the
island of
Spitzbergen and found dinosaur bones falling from the banks of
the Colville
River in Alaska. Since then, researchers have found scattered
evidence of
the creatures from the high Arctic of Canada to near the South
Pole.
The Colville River remains the richest deposit in Alaska.
According to plant
fossils dating to the period from 85 to 100 million years ago --
a time
consistent with the fossilized dinosaur tracks -- Alaska had a
climate
similar to the southern California coast. Alaska's climate was
more like the
coasts of Oregon and Washington 68 to 85 million years ago, the
period to
which paleontologists have dated most of the bones found near the
Colville
River.
The Australian researchers found dinosaur bones alongside
prehistoric
evidence of permafrost in southeastern Australia. Using
oxygen-isotope
methods to determine the average temperatures at the
time the far-south dinosaurs lived, the scientists came up with a
reading of
about minus 2 degrees Celsius. The modern mean annual temperature
of
Fairbanks is minus 2.9 degrees Celsius.
Alaska and Australia paleontologists have both discovered species
of
dinosaur with bulging eyes and brains, which may have been an
adaptation to
low light.
Dinosaurs that lived far from the warmth of the equator --
possibly in
climates as extreme as present-day Fairbanks -- may make people
rethink how
dinosaurs lived and died. Hundreds of clues wait beneath the
floodplain of
the Colville River, frozen where dinosaurs died en masse millions
of years
ago.
Ned Rozell is a science writer at the Geophysical Institute,
University of
Alaska Fairbanks. He can be reached by e-mail at nrozell@dino.gi.alaska.edu.
A glossary of Alaska Science Forum
columns is available online: www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/wildlife.html
===========
(3) WHEN THE ASTEROID HIT, MOST PLANT-EATING BUGS DIED
>From Rocky Mountain News, 22 February 2002
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/home/article/0,1299,DRMN_1_998663,00.html
By JIM ERICKSON
When a 6-mile-wide asteroid slammed into Earth 65 million years
ago, it
wiped out the dinosaurs, about 80 percent of the world's plant
species, and
all animals bigger than a cat.
But what happened to the bugs?
It's been tough for scientists to determine how the insects fared
because
they rarely leave behind fossils.
But a Denver paleontologist and his Smithsonian Institution
colleagues found
a way around the problem: By studying insect damage etched into
thousands of
fossil leaves, they determined that many plant-eating bugs
perished in the
big impact.
"These little insects are leaving their calling cards on the
fossil leaves,
and we have an excellent fossil record of leaves," said Kirk
Johnson,
curator of paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature &
Science.
"So by looking at the insect damage on the leaves before and
after the
dinosaur extinctions, we can make a pretty good educated guess of
what
happened to the insects."
Johnson and his collaborators estimate that 55 percent to 60
percent of
plant-eating insects were exterminated. Their findings are
reported in this
week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Over the past 20 years, Johnson has collected 13,441 plant
fossils from
quarries in southwestern North Dakota.
When the asteroid hit Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, it threw up
clouds of dust
that traveled around the globe. Johnson pulled fossils from rock
layers
directly above and below those sediments.
At the time, southwestern North Dakota was a warm, forested plain
with lots
of broad-leafed trees.
Some leaves, now stored at the Denver museum and at Yale
University, are up
to a foot long. Individual leaf veins are visible, as are the
diagnostic
chomp marks, tunnels and holes left by prehistoric beetles,
grasshoppers,
butterflies and moths.
Certain insects rely on a single species of plant for sustenance;
others are
generalists that feed on several plant types.
By analyzing insect-damaged leaves before and after impact,
researchers
determined that the generalists survived, while 70 percent of
specialists
did not.
Smithsonian entomologist Conrad Labandeira was the lead author of
the
research paper. The third author is Peter Wilf of the Smithsonian
and the
University of Michigan.
(Contact Jim Erickson of the Rocky Mountain News at
http://www.rockymountainnews.com.)
=============
(4) 'FUTURE EVOLUTION': ASTEROIDS ASIDE, WE'RE NOT VULNERABLE
>From The Seattle Times, 22 February 2002
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/134408702_ward22.html
Book Review
'Future Evolution': Asteroids aside, we're not vulnerable
By David B. Williams
Special to The Seattle Times
Five times in Earth's 4.5 billion-year history, some natural
event, such as
an asteroid impact, climate change or changes in sea level, has
led to the
mass deaths of more than half of all plants and animals.
After each catastrophe, life roared back, evolving from what
scientists call
recovery fauna into greater numbers of species than before. One
such massive
extinction 200 million years ago led to the Age of Dinosaurs,
which gave way
to the Age of Mammals, the 65-million-year-long period that our
species
dominates at present.
Many scientists believe that we are in the midst of a sixth mass
extinction.
They cite evidence that the number of species going extinct on
the planet at
present rivals or surpasses any past event. They place the blame
squarely on
our shoulders and warn that we must change how we treat the
planet.
University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward has been one
of these
advocates. In his last book, "Rivers of Time," he
effectively examined mass
extinctions and humanity's preeminent role in the process, and
clearly
showed that we are in the midst of an unparalleled die-off of
species. Ward,
however, has changed his theme; he no longer thinks we are in the
midst of a
mass extinction. Instead, we have moved past the Age of Mammals
into what he
calls the Age of Humanity.
His most recent book, "Future Evolution: An Illuminated
History of Life to
Come" (Times Books, $35) describes his way of viewing the
world. He argues
that we have passed through the most consequential phase of this
sixth mass
extinction - the elimination of many birds and the great beasts
of the last
ice age - and have entered a phase that will eliminate smaller,
more
localized species, as well as wild varieties that we consume. In
addition,
islands, whether natural or artificial, such as national parks or
habitats
surrounded by a sea of humanity, will face the next round of
species
reductions.
He also observes that the recovery of many fauna and flora are
now in place,
too. They all share a similarity, the ability to live with
humans. This
includes domesticated plants and animals and the
"weeds" of the world, such
as rats, dandelions and starlings. They will form the seeds of
future
evolution.
What will this future be like? Ward predicts fewer large animals
and less
diversity, mostly because we have carved the present habitat into
spaces too
small for the bigger beasts. Offshoots of genetic engineering may
lead to
unusual plants and animals, and weeds may evolve into superweeds,
all able
to exploit the "niches and corners" of our world. In
the future, our
descendants might find carnivorous dandelions, flying snakes,
raptorial
crows or swimming pigs.
He also believes that "humanity is functionally
extinction-proof." Neither
disease, nor war, nor catastrophic climate change will do us in.
We will be
here until the very end, although we may see changes through the
proliferation of potentially heritable behavioral disorders, or
some joining
of humans and machines. A main concern is that an asteroid may
hit the
planet, but even that will probably not kill all of our species,
and those
that survive will flourish again.
Ward makes a leap in this book, but one backed by compelling and
thought-provoking evidence. Throughout his career, he has focused
on
extinction and evolution, and he shares numerous examples to
illustrate how
the past gives insights into the present.
He has produced a thesis that will surely cause many people to
re-evaluate
humanity's role on the planet, as well as conservation issues and
genetic
engineering. He continues to show that he is one of the most
intriguing
writers about extinction and evolution. One other key aspect of
this book is
the inclusion of artist Alexis Rockman's futuristic paintings. He
fleshes
out many of Ward's ideas in colorful and whimsical depictions.
Their
addition makes this fine book that much more enjoyable.
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
===============
(5) CRITICAL THERMAL TESTS BEGIN FOR ROSETTA CHASER
>From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=29560
Critical thermal tests begin for Rosetta comet chaser
European Space Agency
February 21, 2002
With less than 11 months to launch, the most advanced spacecraft
ever to
visit a comet is about to begin a critical series of thermal
tests at the
European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in
Noordwijk, the
Netherlands. These tests will play a vital role in ensuring the
success of
ESA's Rosetta mission to unravel the mysteries of Comet Wirtanen.
During its 10-year, 5 billion kilometre mission of
exploration, the Rosetta
spacecraft will be subjected to extreme temperature changes as it
flies from
the benign environment of near-Earth
space to the dark depths of the Solar System beyond the asteroid
belt.
In order to ensure that Rosetta will survive this hazardous trek
- the
cosmic equivalent of travelling from the sizzling deserts of
North Africa to
the frozen wastes of Antarctica - the spacecraft has now been
installed in
the largest thermal vacuum chamber in Europe, where every part of
the
Orbiter and Lander will be alternately baked and frozen inside an
airless
room.
"These are the most critical tests in our entire pre-launch
programme
because they reproduce the conditions that Rosetta will
experience in
flight," said Rosetta Payload and Operations Manager, Claude
Berner.
The three-week-long series of thermal tortures began on 20
February, when
engineers started the lengthy process of removing air from the
giant
chamber. In order to create a vacuum equivalent to that of deep
space, this
'pumping down' was expected to take more than one day.
Once the depressurisation is completed, the so-called 'thermal
balance -
thermal vacuum' tests can begin. Perched on a gimbal system - a
table that
can both tilt and rotate - the position of
the spacecraft will then be adjusted so that every phase of its
complex
flight plan can be simulated.
"We will be working in three shifts, around the clock, to
examine the
condition of the spacecraft during simulations of 15 different
mission
phases," said Claude Berner. "This means we will have
to manoeuvre it into
specific attitudes that represent critical parts of the mission
in terms of
exposure to heat or cold."
During three circuits of the inner Solar System, the amount of
solar
radiation reaching Rosetta will vary by as much as 25 times. The
period of
maximum heating, which will take place near the
Earth, is simulated by using mirrors and powerful lamps. These
will expose
different parts of the spacecraft to temperatures exceeding
150°C.
In order to simulate the cold of deep space, where the
temperature drops
well below -100°C, liquid nitrogen will be pumped through pipes
in the
chamber walls. More than 100 active sensors will be monitoring
the responses
of the spacecraft's systems and instruments during this punishing
programme.
"We want to make the tests as realistic as possible, so we
are testing the
full flight configuration of Rosetta in the chamber,"
explained Claude
Berner. "The spacecraft is blanketed by layers of aluminised
kapton that
provide insulation against extreme cold, while onboard radiators
will be
expected to expel excess heat."
"We even have simulated propellant in the fuel tanks to see
whether any
leakages occur," he added. "It is also important to
discover how much
outgassing from the spacecraft structure takes place as the
temperature
changes."
The Rosetta team expects the thermal tests to be completed in the
second
week of March.
==============
(6) GALILEO ON CRASH COURSE
>From News24, 21 February 2001
http://www.news24.co.za/News24/World/Europe/0,1113,2-10-19_1148121,00.html
Hamburg - After the most successful interplanetary research
mission in
history, the German-American space craft Galileo has now been put
on course
for a crash landing with the planet it has been studying for more
than half
a decade: Jupiter.
Next November, the "miracle space probe" will pass by
Jupiter more closely
than it ever has in its previous 33 fly-bys, and then almost a
year later,
it will, as planned, disappear into the planet's atmosphere.
That event will close the logbook on a mission which, despite the
early loss
of the main antenna, provided for a whole series of
"firsts" in space
exploration and ushered in a new era of planetary research.
As with so many things with this probe, even the way it got
started on its
journey was unusual.
Brought aloft on October 18, 1989, by the US space shuttle
"Atlantis", the
Galileo was the first to be sent into the interior of our solar
system in
order to use the gravitational fields of Venus and the Earth to
send it,
slingshot-style, soaring towards Jupiter.
The darkest chapter came on April 11, 1991, when the main
antenna, which had
been folded up for protection against the heat as Galileo passed
by the sun,
failed to properly unfold again. Months of attempts to open the
antenna up
proved to be futile.
It still appears to be something of a miracle that, with the help
of a small
auxiliary antenna, 70 per cent of Galileo's research programme
could still
be carried out.
After an odyssey of several years the probe, with its propulsion
system
built by the former German aerospace company MBB, achieved its
orbit around
Jupiter in December 1995. Before that, Galileo succeeded in
training its eye
on the "Gaspra" asteroid and in discovering a moon in
Jupiter's system.
Astronomers say a pioneering feat was the first documented
collision of
objects in our solar system: in July 1994, Galileo witnessed the
crash of
the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet onto Jupiter.
Initially, Galileo's mission to study Jupiter and its moons was
to have
lasted until 1997. But it was extended three times. In this
period, the
probe absorbed three and one-half times the amount of dangerous
radiation
than its builders had conceived.
Galileo's arrival at Jupiter was accompanied by a number of
highlights,
including the dropping of a smaller capsule into the thick
atmosphere of a
planet with 318 times the mass of the earth, providing new
scientific data.
Copyright 2002, Sapa-DPA
==========
(7) SCIENTISTS STUDY ARCTIC CRATER
>From Newsday, 24 February 2002
http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-exp-mars-machines0224feb24.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dscience%2Dheadlines
By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
PENSACOLA, Fla. -- William J. Clancey tags along when NASA
researchers visit
a crater 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle to explore its
Marslike
environment.
"The scientists are studying the crater, the geology and
biology of this
land, and I'm studying the scientists," Clancey said.
He wants to see how they go about their business to develop ways
that
computers and other devices can be used to help astronauts
explore Mars.
Clancey, a computer scientist specializing in artificial
intelligence at the
University of West Florida's Institute of Human and Machine
Cognition in
Pensacola, is on loan to the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett
Field,
Calif.
NASA scientists have found that the Canadian Arctic's Haughton
Crater,
formed when an asteroid struck Devon Island 24 million years ago,
has many
geological features similar to Mars.
"It was like Mars on Earth, a Mars park, if you will,"
said Pascal Lee, a
planetary scientist for the private SETI Institute (Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence) at Mountain View, Calif.
Lee also works at Ames as leader of the Haughton-Mars Project,
which studies
the similarities and differences between Devon Island and Mars.
Clancey, as leader of a NASA space exploration research team, has
joined the
Haughton scientists for their annual visits the past four years,
spending 10
days to a month on the island each summer.
"We want to understand exploration," Clancey said.
"How do people explore?"
To make the research realistic, scientists put on spacesuits that
restrict
their visibility and maneuverability. They limit their time on
each traverse
because on Mars they would be restricted by the amount of oxygen
they could
take with them.
One of the first lessons from Haughton was that all-terrain
vehicles with
single seats offer better mobility than larger moon buggies with
side-by-side seating for two astronauts.
"You have much better balance," Clancey said. "It
would be a one-on-one
thing, but in a pinch if one of them breaks down you can get two
people on
one."
Cumbersome spacesuit gloves quickly posed a challenge to the
scientists as
they took notes on their observations.
Clancey said the answer could be audio recordings that may have
to be
transmitted to Earth for transcription unless sufficient
improvements are
made in speech recognition software so it can be done on Mars.
Storing and accessing data, getting it back to Earth and
communicating with
Earth are other issues his team is working on.
Astronauts have near-instantaneous contact with mission control
while in
Earth orbit but will face lengthy delays from faraway places such
as Mars.
"Imagine you're on Mars and you just had a
malfunction," Clancey said.
It may be 10 minutes before the message gets to mission control,
which uses
10 more minutes to formulate a response that takes yet another 10
minutes to
get back to Mars.
"That's 30 minutes from the time that you said, 'Houston, we
have problem,'"
Clancey said.
The answer may be computers such as the fictional HAL 9000 in the
film
"2001: A Space Odyssey," which advised astronauts how
to handle emergencies
until deciding it had to get rid of them to complete its mission
to Jupiter.
"We haven't built HAL, but it's the general notion of
artificial
intelligence," Clancey said. "We definitely have it
within our capabilities
to have programs that answer basic factual questions about where
stuff is
stored, what are the procedures I should follow, what's the
interpretation?"
In contrast with past moon exploration, Clancey found scientists
at Haughton
returned repeatedly to the same spots instead of trying to sample
as many
different places as they could.
"They're not just out there on what we'd call a fishing
expedition," Clancey
said. "They have a sense in mind of what there is to be
found and where they
might look."
Lee said that's important for NASA to understand when designing
Mars
missions.
"Bill Clancey's work is at the very core of learning how to
optimize the
living and working conditions of humans on Mars," he said.
Another focus is on what scientists will do inside their Mars
habitats.
The Mars Society in 2000 built a research station at Haughton
similar to
those that might be established on Mars. Six-member crews rotate
in and out
from June through August. The private group is building another
station at
Hanksville, Utah, for year-round study.
Clancey, meanwhile, is working on computer software to create a
virtual
reality habitat for testing layouts, designs and procedures and
training
future Mars explorers.
There is disagreement within and outside the scientific community
about
whether humans should go to Mars at all or if exploration should
be left to
robots.
Clancey believes there is a place for both.
"We're not going to Mars just for the science," he
said. "We go because of
the adventure. Why do you climb Everest? It's not just to get
samples of
rocks."
On the Net:
William J. Clancey: http://home.att.net/(tilde)WJClancey/
Haughton-Mars Project: http://www.marsonearth.org/
Copyright © Newsday, Inc.
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(8) COMET IKEYA-ZHANG
>From Mark Kidger <mrk@ll.iac.es>
Benny:
The address for my light curve of Ikeya-Zhang got truncated
somehow
(probably in my original message). It should be:
http://www.iac.es/galeria/mrk/Light_2002c1.gif
Mark
=======
(9) CCNet PHILOSOPHY?
>From Max Wallis <wallismk@Cardiff.ac.uk>
One person's pessimism is another's realism
Dear Benny,
You wrote
> By balancing the growing awareness of Earth's
> catastrophic history with the prospect of future disaster
> prevention, CCNet is steering clear from doom-mongering
> and cultural pessimism.
This was concerned with COMMUNICATING on THE IMPACT HAZARD but
evidently
generalises beyond that.
As the topic is "communicating", I'd suggest that
others say first what they
thing the main clause means. To me "steering clear"
implies the moderator's
choosing, but what do we reckon he is keeping clear of?
Max Wallis
Cardiff Centre for
Astrobiology wallismk@cf.ac.uk
2 North
Road
tel. 029 2087 6425
Cardiff University CF10
2DY
MODERATOR'S NOTE: I thought my philosophy is fairly simple to
understand:
"CCNet is steering clear from doom-mongering or cultural
pessimism." What
exactly is it, Max, you didn't get?
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