PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet DIGEST, 2 March 1999
--------------------------
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Finding something is not the same
as discovering what is found.
The more astronomers study the growing
evidence of extra-solar
planets, the less the planets resemble
anything in the one
planetary system they had known and had
based their theories on:
the Sun's family of planets." (The
New York Times, 2 March 1999)
(1) NEW OrbFit SOFTWARE - AND IT'S FREE
Andrea Milani Comparetti <milani@copernico.dm.unipi.it>
(2) SPACE ENTREPRENEUR MAY INSPIRE 'ROCKET BOY' FOR A NEW
MILLENNIUM
CNN INTERACTIVE
http://cnn.com/TECH/space/9903/01/obrien.3.1/index.html
(3) AIR FORCE TELESCOPE PREEMPTS COMET HUNTERS
Tony Ortega, Astronomy Magazine, April 1999
(4) SEARCH FOR NEW PLANETS YIELDS CONFUSION
The New York Times, March 2, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/030299sci-planets-confusion.html
==================
(1) NEW OrbFit SOFTWARE - AND IT'S FREE
From Andrea Milani Comparetti <milani@copernico.dm.unipi.it>
Dear OrbFitters and dear friends,
This message announces the new and significantly improved
distribution 1.9.0 of the free software OrbFit. Although there
are
also improvements in the algorithms, from the user's point of
view
the main improvements are a user-friendly installation procedure,
online help facilities, and the possibility to install on many
more
different computers and operating systems (notably WINDOWS).
The purpose of the software system we are distributing,
maintaining
and continously upgrading, is to make available to observers of
asteroids an easy to use but accurate and reliable software to
compute preliminary orbits, ephemerides, improved orbits (by
differential corrections), identifications, and other auxiliary
functions, to allow the processing of astrometric observations
and
the planning of observational campaigns (typically to recover
lost
objects).
Main improvements with respect to 1.8.0 are:
1) The online hypertext help has been fully restructured, and is
now
a user manual including all the instruction to upload, install,
and
start using the software.
2) Absolute magnitude (that is more or less size) is now
automatically esitmated every time a new orbit is computed.
3) The input/output of observations has been fully restructured.
We
now provide a new file format (.rwo) containing Residuals,
Weights
(including rejection flags) and Observations. This can be used as
input, although the MPC format (.obs) files are also accepted,
with a
sophisticated logic to control the priority.
4) A Windows version, running under Windows95, Windows98 and
Windows
NT is now available as an executable; we compile the Windows
version
from the same source directories, by using Digital Visual Fortran
6.0
and the NMAKE utility.
5) We have added a jpleph directory under ./src. The Makefile and
documentation there are intended to simplify (a bit) the task of
creating binary format JPL Ephemerides on your machine.
6) We are now supplying binary ephemerides for Windows and Linux
at
our ftp site: ftp://copernico.dm.unipi.it/pub/orbfit/
.
We are presently working toward several improvements, described
in
the file README.workinprog which is enclosed with the
distribution;
the most urgent one is to generate a better graphics, especially
for
the WINDOWS version for which the graphics output is not
available
yet.
The software can be obtained at
ftp://copernico.dm.unipi.it/pub/orbfit
A README file to be found therein provides all the necessary
instruction for installation on all flavours of UNIX and WINDOWS
computers.
This software system has been developed by a consortium including
A.
Milani and S. Chesley (Pisa University), M. Carpino (Astronomical
Observatory Milano/Brera), Z. Knezevic (Astronomical Observatory
Belgrade) and G. B. Valsecchi (CNR Rome).
Copyright (C) 1997-1999 OrbFit Consortium
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published
by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
To contact us:
milani@dm.unipi.it
chesley@dm.unipi.it
carpino@brera.mi.astro.it,
giovanni@saturn.ias.fra.cnr.it,
zoran@aob.bg.ac.yu,
======================
(2) SPACE ENTREPRENEUR MAY INSPIRE 'ROCKET BOY' FOR A NEW
MILLENNIUM
From CNN INTERACTIVE
http://cnn.com/TECH/space/9903/01/obrien.3.1/index.html
March 1, 1999
LONDON (CNN) -- By now, you have probably heard the story of
Homer
Hickam Jr.
Born and raised in a tiny West Virginia coal town, a teen-aged
Hickam
looked to the night sky after the launch of Sputnik in October of
1957,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the 184 pound satellite as it
streaked by.
He never saw it, but like the rest of the world, he heard those
strangely menacing beeps, and realized in an instant what it
meant for
the world and where he wanted to be in it. Homer Hickam knew he
wanted
to work for NASA and be one of Wernher von Braun's boys. He
wanted to
build rockets. And so he got to work.
Over the objection of his coal-mining father, but with some
encouragement from an understanding mother and teacher, he and
some
friends began building model rockets -- with sometimes
frightening,
sometimes comical, every now and then, stunningly successful
results.
Ultimately, it was Hickam's ticket out of Coalwood. He ended up
working
for NASA as an engineer -- his rocket projects growing to a size
and
complexity that he could not have imagined as he gazed into that
October
sky.
That, of course, is the title of the Hollywood version of
Hickam's
charming memoir "Rocket Boys." (In case you haven't
noticed -- "October
Sky" is an anagram of the book title). I haven't seen the
movie yet,
but started the book before I left for London, and have been
savoring
it during every free moment I get.
I was thinking about Hickam's book earlier this week when I
visited a
small space hardware manufacturer west of here (in Newbury)
called
Space Innovations Ltd.
SIL's 50 employees design small satellites (able to carry 100 to
600
pound payloads) as well as X- and S-band transmitters and
receivers to
keep those satellites in touch with their owners.
The owner of the company is an intriguing American entrepreneur
by the
name of Jim Benson. Producer Linda Saether and I are profiling
him for
an upcoming piece on "NewsStand/Fortune."
Benson's San Diego based company SpaceDev is the world's first
commercial space exploration company. He's got some big plans for
making money on the exploration and exploitation of space --
including
sending a small satellite to a near-Earth asteroid in late 2000.
He is convinced he can turn a profit on this venture by selling
rides
for scientific instruments to a government, a company or a
university.
But what really caught my attention is what he'd like to do next.
When the science mission is complete, the SpaceDev Near Earth
Asteroid
Prospector (NEAP) satellite will make a soft landing on the
asteroid
Nereus, laying the groundwork for Benson to stake his claim.
Benson eventually would like to mine Nereus for its resources.
Can you
guess what resource might be most precious on an asteroid? It's
water.
That's right, water. After all, remember what rocket fuel is:
hydrogen
and oxygen. H20 -- ice -- might prove, in space, all that
glitters
really isn't gold. Who knows? Jim Benson might one day become the
John
D. Rockefeller of the space revolution.
In fact, Jim Benson is certain there will be a revolution in
space in
the next decade. He compares it to the industry where he made his
fortune: computers. The relentless miniaturization of electronics
brought down mainframe giants like Sperry, Univac, Burroughs and
Honeywell. Could small, inexpensive satellites do the same to the
big
aerospace contractors? Benson thinks so. And he is putting his
money
where his mouth is.
I was wrestling with these revelations when I met Stephen
Gardner, one
of SIL's young aerospace engineers. He looked up from the
computer
image of the tiny satellite he is helping design and he told me:
"It's
really come full circle. Right back to Sputnik-size
spacecraft."
Sputnik-sized yes, but able to do so much more than beep. I
wonder who
now realizes, in an instant, what this means for the world. Will
bright
teen-agers one day long to be one of Jim Benson's boys?
Copyright 1999, CNN
====================
(3) AIR FORCE TELESCOPE PREEMPTS COMET HUNTERS
Tony Ortega
Astronomy Magazine, April 1999
The Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, receives about 10,000
position reports of known and new asteroids and comets a month.
But
beginning in March 1998, a single Air Force telescope has swamped
the
MPC. The telescope submitted 160,000 observations in September
alone
-- sending a shudder of disbelief through the world's
astronomical-research community.
The little known, high-tech military telescope run by scientists
from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory
has,
virtually overnight, become the world's preeminent tool for
finding
asteroids and comets. The LINEAR observatory, short for Lincoln
Near-Earth Asteroid Research, uses a state-of-the-art telescope
with
super-fast light detectors to find so many asteroids that
astronomers
don't even try to keep track of them all. It is finding such an
abundance of near-Earth asteroids, main-belt asteroids, and
comets
that astronomers are stunned. Comets named after people
could be a
thing of the past.
Until [my] visit, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory had permitted only one
film crew to see the telescope. Grant Stokes, an astrophysicist
who
runs the program from MIT, also in Cambridge, agreed to let me
see
the installation. It is located in a patrolled, high-security
area on
the White Sands Missile Range about a mile from Trinity Site,
where
the first nuclear bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945.
The LINEAR observatory is a squat, sheet-metal building
surrounded by
eight small observatory domes. Most of them are used in
Ground-based
Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance, or GEODSS, a program
that
keeps track of about 9,500 man-made objects that orbit Earth.
With
GEODSS, the United States can see everything from astronaut
gloves to
foreign spy satellites whizzing by overhead. LINEAR uses
just one of
the telescopes in one of the domes.
The LINEAR CCD, or charge-coupled device light detector, has 5
million pixels, or picture elements, arranged in a 1960- by
2560-pixel array. The LINEAR chip is back-illuminated, meaning
that
instead of losing precious light-gathering potential to a lattice
of
wiring that connects pixels, electrical connectors that connect
each
pixel are etched into the chip. As a result, the chip is as thick
as
aluminum foil and has twice the light-gathering capacity of a
conventional CCD.
Astronomers wait up to two minutes for data from a conventional
CCD
to be recorded, whereas the LINEAR CCD reads all of its pixels in
a
few milliseconds. Stokes showed me how the chip manages it. Above
and
below the light-gathering area there are highly reflective areas
that
he calls "frame stores." They're effectively 5,000
parallel channels
through which the information stored on the millions of pixels
can be
rapidly shifted.
The information is read by a computer via eight parallel channels
of
fiber optic lines. The LINEAR chip soaks up enough starlight to
detect faint, 19th-magnitude stars in only 10 seconds. The chip
then
dumps the information into a computer so fast, the chip is ready
for
the next frame without having to use a shutter.
LINEAR's 1-meter telescope is housed in a small dome outside the
metal building. Eric Pearce, the on-site astronomer who
manages the
facility, simply removes a cloth cover before working each
evening.
The scope runs itself automatically. The telescope's mount was
built
for quick slewing-and-stopping. It makes asteroid detection seem
like
child's play. Taking rapid snapshots, it has time to take five
images
of each piece of sky. The scope photographs most of the night sky
during 10 nights of observing each month.
Powerful computers layer the five pieces on top of one another.
With
a push of a button, software gobbles up thousands of stars on the
screen. Suddenly, the only objects remaining on the screen are a
handful of objects the software decides are asteroids and
cornets..
"If you're willing to take five frames, the software has a
very good
performance with respect to probability of discovery and a very
low
false-alarm rate," says Stokes in his understated, technical
way.
"The Minor Planet Center tells us that when we sweep through
an area
we find everything we're supposed to find: everything they know
about, plus stuff they don't know about."
The results have been astonishing. Since LINEAR went on line at
full
speed in March 1998, the project has swamped the MPC with new
discoveries. Of the 147 total near-Earth objects found in all
observatories between March and November, LINEAR discovered 102
of
them. Of the objects discovered during that period that were 0.6
miles (1 km) or larger -- the size considered large enough to
cause
climatic disruptions on Earth -- LINEAR discovered 26 of the
total
38. Of 28 comets discovered in the same period, LINEAR had its
name attached to 13 of them.
By January 3, overworked orbit calculators at the MPC had given
designations to 19,293 new asteroids discovered by LINEAR in only
10
months of operation. That is only 5,984 fewer asteroids than
Spacewatch [at the University of Arizona] discovered in 16 years.
"The MPC is going to have to get some new computers,"
Stokes says
with a satisfied grin.
============================
(4) SEARCH FOR NEW PLANETS YIELDS CONFUSION
From The New York Times, March 2, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/030299sci-planets-confusion.html
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
The discovery of planets around other stars has made Epicureans
of
astronomers. Not that they now put out the fine silver, pop the
cork
and dress for dinner by candlelight every long night under the
observatory dome; they are still unwrapping their tired
sandwiches and
tearing open the corn chips, thank you. But nowadays their tastes
run
to the cosmic musings of the eponymous founder of Epicurean
philosophy.
Epicurus, a Greek philosopher in the fourth century B.C., did not
explicitly predict the existence of planets around stars other
than the
Sun, but he believed in an infinity of worlds, meaning other
ordered
systems beyond the visible universe as it was then conceived.
This
contrasted to the Earth-centered cosmos of the contemporary
Aristotle,
whose cosmology prevailed in Western thought for more than two
millennia.
Only in the last three years have astronomers established the
reality
of latter-day Epicurean speculations about a plurality of worlds,
which
in recent centuries came to mean planets beyond the solar system,
some
possibly inhabited. But while astronomers tip their hats to
Epicurus,
they just wish he had advised them how to make sense of the
distant
planets being detected by their telescopes.
Finding something is not the same as discovering what is found.
The
more astronomers study the growing evidence of extra-solar
planets, the
less the planets resemble anything in the one planetary system
they had
known and had based their theories on: the Sun's family of
planets.
At last count, astronomers in the United States and Europe had
observed
18 nearby Sunlike stars showing telltale motions from the gravity
of
large, unseen planets orbiting them, and they fully expect to
find
more. Yet they suspect they have seen enough to begin rethinking
how
nature creates and destroys planets and choreographs their
orbital
minuets.
Nine of the objects hug closer to their parent stars than Mercury
is to
the Sun, closer than standard theory predicted planets could be;
one is
so near that it makes a complete revolution -- its full year --
every
3.1 Earth days. The other nine travel unusually elliptical, or
oval-shaped, orbits, several of them plunging in relatively close
to
their stars and then swinging far out again; orbits in the solar
system
are almost circular. Several extrasolar planets are at least
three
times as massive as Jupiter, the solar system's giant, and one is
estimated to have 11 times the Jovian mass -- raising questions
about
how massive can a planet be.
Dr. Geoffrey W. Marcy, the astronomer at San Francisco State
University
who has had a hand in most of the discoveries, is as surprised as
anyone. "A trend is now being stamped on these discoveries
that we
thought, frankly, would go away," he said.
But it has not, and questions pile up. Many stars may have
planets, as
the discoveries suggest, but is there a typical pattern? Could
the
solar system be an oddball? If so, does that diminish prospects
for
intelligent life's existence elsewhere in the universe?
Dr. Alan P. Boss, a theorist of planetary systems at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, thinks astronomers will eventually
"find
systems that look something like our solar system." He
acknowledged
that they would also "find many more surprises to make us
rethink what
we're doing."
Astronomers concede that so far their sampling of extrasolar
planets
may not be representative, only a reflection of detection
capabilities.
They have no proof yet of another Sunlike star with more than one
planet, or with anything considerably smaller than Jupiter. But
it is
easier to observe the gravitational effects of Jupiter-class
planets,
especially those extremely close to the host stars. It takes
years of
repeated observations to gather reliable evidence for planets
traveling
the longer orbits at much greater distances from a star. And it
is not
yet possible to detect in any orbit, near or far, an Earth-size
or even
Saturn-size planet.
The newest detection, announced last month, was of the smallest
extrasolar planet yet examined, one that has less than half of
Jupiter's mass and is only 1.4 times more massive than Saturn.
The
planet, in a tight 3.5-day orbit around the star HD 75289, was
found by
a team of Swiss astronomers led by Dr. Michel Mayor of the Geneva
Observatory, who in October 1995 reported the first confirmed
planet
around another star like the Sun.
In the next decade, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
expects to fly several space telescopes for a more comprehensive
survey
of planets around nearby stars. On the drawing board is an
advanced
satellite called Planet Finder that someday could send back the
first
pictures of Earth-type extrasolar planets.
"It's a terribly exciting field right now," said Dr.
Stephen Lubow, an
astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in
Baltimore.
"The discoveries have really opened a new window on the
nature of
planetary objects in the universe."
The first discoveries of extrasolar planets should have prepared
astronomers to expect the unexpected. In 1992, radio astronomers
reported the first strong evidence of such objects, but the two
planets
were not orbiting a normal star. They accompanied a pulsar, the
dense
remnant of an exploded star and not a neighborhood likely to be
hospitable to life.
Dr. Mayor and Dr. Didier Queloz of Switzerland then detected a
planet
around 51 Pegasi, a solar-type star, and this was soon confirmed
by Dr..
Marcy and a colleague, Dr. R. Paul Butler. The first accepted
planet of
an ordinary star excited and puzzled astronomers. Both teams were
startled to find that the planet, about half the mass of Jupiter,
was
in an almost circular orbit less than one-sixth the equivalent
distance
of Mercury to the Sun.
Ever since then, theorists have been puzzling over how several of
the
large planets -- dubbed "hot Jupiters" because of their
proximity to
the intense heat of their stars -- could be where they are. Why
were
they not out somewhere the equivalent of the Jupiter-Sun
distance?
Because known physical laws rule out the formation of large
planets so
close to a star, theorists think they formed in a more benign
environment far out and migrated inward. The unlucky ones
probably
crashed into their stars. Others somehow settled into cozy orbits
at
less than one-fourth of an astronomical unit, the standard
measure of
planetary distances in which one unit is the distance from the
Sun to
Earth, or 93 million miles.
The migration theory that receives the widest attention was
proposed by
Dr. Douglas Lin of the University of California at Santa Cruz,
Dr.
Peter Bodenheimer of the university's Santa Barbara campus and
Dr.
Derek Richardson of the University of Washington.
Their concept drew on research by Dr. William Ward of the
Southwest
Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and ideas developed to
explain
the interplay of the rings and satellites around Saturn.
According to prevailing theory, a planetary system forms from a
disk of
gas, dust and chunks of rock that surrounds a newborn star. The
star's
heat would drive gas out of the inner disk and prevent the huge
gaseous
planets from forming there. They would instead develop in the
gas-rich
outer disk.
In the early period of planetary formation, the disk would still
be
thick with gas and other material. Drag from the disk material
and its
general inward flow, caused by the young star's gravity, would
have
drawn many of the large planets out of their original orbits.
Astrophysicists postulate several phenomena that prevent at least
some
of the planets from plunging all the way into their stars. One is
that
when the star was young it was spinning more rapidly, creating
tidal
forces that arrest a planet's migration short of catastrophe.
Another
idea, suggested by some observations of young stars, is based on
the
likelihood that the gravity or magnetic forces of newly formed
stars
soon sweep away disk material from their nearest surroundings,
leaving
a doughnut hole at the center. Here the migrating planets could
settle
into parking orbits.
Dr. Lin, pondering why something like this did not happen to
Jupiter,
decided that previous Jupiters in the solar system probably
migrated to
their destruction. Jupiter and the other solar planets represent
the
last generation, created as the planetary disk was dissipating
and
leaving more stable conditions. Or perhaps the solar system's
protoplanetary disk never had enough gas and dust to perturb the
orbits
of its new planets.
A more recent variation on the migration theory was introduced by
a
team of theorists at the University of Toronto led by Dr. Norman
Murray. In the early formative period, they argue, planets might
be
orbiting through a disk of planetesimals, small rocky objects
colliding
with or being ejected by the planets. The destabilizing
interactions
with the planetesimals could push the newly forming planets
toward
their stars.
One of the first detections by the Marcy-Butler team, announced
in
January 1996, introduced another puzzlement. The planet around 70
Virginis was more than seven times the Jovian mass and not as
close to
its star as many others, but its orbit was highly elliptical.
Other
planet discoveries revealed similar characteristics. The one
around 16
Cygni B has the most elliptical orbit; if it was in the solar
system,
the massive planet would sweep in as close as Venus and retreat
out as
far as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Some powerful gravitational forces, astrophysicists said, must
have
perturbed the planets' orbits. A star passing too close could
knock a
planet out of its generally circular orbit.
Or the planet's own star could be part of a binary system, one of
two
stars in gravitational embrace, and the companion star could be
unsettling the nearby planets. But not all the planets in
elliptical
orbits are in binary systems.
Dr. Frederic A. Rasio of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology,
working with Dr. Eric Ford, has proposed a concept of
gravitational
scattering that, he said, "explains very naturally and
simply planets
in wide eccentric orbits."
The idea involves two or more huge planets orbiting in close
proximity
so that they generate a kind of gravitational slingshot. The
forces
might sling one planet off on an elongated orbit to the inner
planetary
system, while the other might fly off toward the fringes of the
system,
perhaps escaping into interstellar space.
Such a scenario could also explain why astronomers have yet to
find
more than one planet around a single star. Any other large ones
there
were catapulted into deeper, longer orbits and would be
undetectable in
the brief time astronomers have been looking for evidence of
extrasolar
planets.
Just one giant planet on an elongated orbit, moreover, would
probably
spell doom for smaller planets as it crosses their paths time and
again, scattering or destroying them in the turbulence of their
gravitational wakes.
"If our Jupiter were in an eccentric orbit, the Earth and
Mars would
likely be gravitationally scattered out of the solar
system," Dr. Marcy
said. "Thus our existence depends on both Jupiter and Earth
being in
mutually stable, circular orbits."
The implications are profound for the search for extraterrestrial
life.
"The big bullies may wipe clean the terrestrial planets in
those
planetary systems, rendering them void of any Earth
analogues," the
astronomer said.
Dr. Marcy takes an optimistic view. Of all the Sunlike stars that
have
been studied so far by planet seekers, he said, only 5 percent
have
been found to have Jupiter-mass planets in such dangerously
eccentric
orbits.
That leaves 95 percent of stars that may be free of these
wrecking
forces and so could harbor habitable planets.
All theories to explain the newly detected extrasolar planets,
Dr.
Rasio said, remain at "the hand-waving level."
Theorists are severely
limited by observations, which have yet to reveal more than one
planet
around a single normal star. The two or three objects around a
pulsar
offer little insight. Earlier reports of possibly two planets
around
the star Lalande 21185 have not been confirmed.
"If you only see one companion to a star, you cannot say
that this is a
planetary system," Dr. Rasio said. "That's going to be
the next major
breakthrough, finding multiple planets and then putting some
constraints on the properties and behaviors of other planetary
systems.
That's our holy grail."
Planet hunters like Dr. Marcy are looking. They speak of some
interesting hints, but nothing yet for the new Epicureans of
astronomy
to feast on.
Copyright 1999, The New York Times Newspapers Ltd.
----------------------------------------
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) HOUSE OF COMMONS TO DEBATE COSMIC IMPACT THREAT
Jonathan TATE <fr77@dial.pipex.com>
(2) FUNNY THINGS, BLUE MOONS
Colin Keay <phcslk@cc.Newcastle.edu.au>
(3) SPACEGUARD INTERNATIONAL
David J. Johnson" <starman@mail.fwi.com>
============
(1) HOUSE OF COMMONS TO DEBATE COSMIC IMPACT THREAT
From Jonathan TATE <fr77@dial.pipex.com>
Benny,
This was sent to cc world last night. You might like to post it
on
CCNet?
All the best
Jay
PRESS RELEASE
HOUSE OF COMMONS TO DEBATE COSMIC IMPACT THREAT
On Wednesday 3rd March 1999 there will be an adjournment debate
in the
House of Commons, in the name of Lembit Öpik MP (LibDem,
Montgomeryshire) on the threat posed to our civilisation by
asteroid
collisions with the Earth.
A press conference will be held in Room W2 at the House of
Commons at
12:00 Wednesday 3rd March. The panel will be Mr. Öpik,
Prof. Mark
Bailey, Director of the Armagh Observatory, Dr. Monica Grady,
Curator
of Meteorites at the Natural History Museum and Jonathan Tate,
Director
of Spaceguard UK.
Commenting in advance of the press conference, Mr. Tate said:
"The scenarios depicted in Deep Impact and Armageddon will
happen – it
is a statistical certainty. The only question is
when. The chance
that you will be killed by asteroid impact is twice as high as
the
chance you’ll meet your end in a plane crash."
Prof. Bailey added: "Major cosmic impacts don’t occur
very often, but
when they do they have the potential to kill millions, if not
billions
of people – worse than a global nuclear war.
"This is the hazard that is most likely to end civilisation
as we know
it."
Mr. Tate added: "Those mentioning asteroid impacts struggle
to be
listened to: the whole subject suffers from a substantial
"giggle
factor". However, it’s now technically possible
to avoid, or at least
mitigate, the effects of impacts. This is why it is so important
for
the subject to be discussed now."
Lembit Oepik MP will be calling in the debate for a concerted
effort by
the Government to plan UK involvement in measures to tackle this
threat. He will be calling for more funding for those who study
the
threat, such as Armagh Observatory and Spaceguard UK.
ENDS
Contact:
Jonathan Tate
Spaceguard UK
Cygnus Lodge,
High Street, Figheldean,
Wiltshire SP4 8JT
Tel: (Home) 01980 671380
(Work) 01980 675279
Mobile: 0780 331 9108
E-mail: fr77@dial.pipex.com
===============
(2) FUNNY THINGS, BLUE MOONS
From Colin Keay <phcslk@cc.Newcastle.edu.au>
Dear Benny:
NASA Science News is usually great stuff. Occasionally, however,
a
teeny bit of home-town bias creeps in. This happened with the
"Once in
a Blue Moon" story you reported on 99/3/1. We longitudinally
disadvantaged inhabitants of the far eastern hemisphere had no
Blue
Moon in January and won't have one in March either! Why not?
Because
Blue Moons are time-zone dependent. Eastern Australia (and New
Zealand), but not Western Australia, will have a Blue Moon in
May. But
Western Australia gets in a month earlier, with their Blue Moon
in
April!
Funny things, Blue Moons.
Cheers ...... Colin Keay
Dr Colin Keay
::::::: ~
~ To achieve anything really
Physics Dept
~
:::::
~ worthwhile in research it is
Newcastle Univ
~ :::\ | /
~ necessary to go against the
NSW, AUSTRALIA 2308 ~
~ - o
- opinions of one's fellows.
phcslk@cc.Newcastle.edu.au
/ | \ ~
"Where the Wind Blows"
www2.hunterlink.net.au/~ddcsk
~
~ ~ - Fred
Hoyle
=============
(3) SPACEGUARD INTERNATIONAL
From David J. Johnson" <starman@mail.fwi.com>
Dear Benny,
Now this is quite an article that Victor found... However the
Spaceguard issue is more than just about a number of us
"poor step
children of the astronomy realm", who want money to search
the skys for
these NEO's which might reach out and touch us. It's all
about
survivability, the survival of mankind... One of these Big Rocks
is not
going to care what our politics are, or what color our skin is or
what
our religion may be, we just happened to be in the way, and got
smacked..
The recent rumblings of the Linear Project of the USAF are in
fact a
very welcome addition to the quest to keep humanity whole, but
the down
side is: it's one insturment, and it's only in the Northern
Hemisphere.
Unless the U.S. and the USAF are willing to SHARE this new
technology
with the world, and assist in the developement of the Spaceguard
International effort, then what good is it? But we know that this
was a
Secret Project to begin with, and I doubt that we step-children
will
get much more than a look (external) due to "National
Security"... It
is obvious that if this system works as advertised, then it is
surley
needed, and a simular system should be set up with the Australian
Spaceguard Survey, covering our back door so to speak...
But in realistic terms, we all realize that we will be very
suprised if
this system enters into full time service on a Spaceguard
mission.
Thus, we may be right back where we were a week ago, no further
but no
closer.
Yet, Jay Tate's suggestion of a Spaceguard Co-Op, indicates that
maybe
the world is begining to tire of all this, and it's time to unify
our
front, as we can get a lot more done working togeather than we
can
independantly...
Regards
David James Johnson
-----------------
CCNet-LETTERS is the discussion forum of the Cambridge-Conference
Network. Contributions to the on-going debate about near-Earth
objects,
the cosmic environment of our planet and how to deal with it are
welcome. To subscribe or unsubscribe from CCNet-LETTERS, please
contact
Benny J Peiser at <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>.
The fully indexed archive
of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html
*
FAO UK LIST MEMBERS: SOME PUBLIC TALKS ON THE IMPACT HAZARD
COMETS AND DISASTER IN THE BRONZE AGE
Thursday, 4 March 1999, 7.00pm
Main Lecture Theatre in the School of Electrical and Computer
Science,
Dean Street, Bangor, Wales.
Gwynedd Astronomical Society and the Morien Institute jointly
host
this first meeting in a programme of 'Paradigm Shift' debates
that
are intended to present to a wider audience the advances that
have
been made in recent years by an inter-disciplinary approach to
our
understanding of prehistory.
Over the past 15 years or so a new type of 'natural disaster' has
been
much discussed and is beginning to be regarded, by many scholars,
as
the most probable single explanation for widespread and
simultaneous
cultural collapse, not only in the Bronze Age but at other times
as
well. The new idea is that these massive cultural disasters were
caused
by the impact of cosmic debris on the Earth. Social
anthropologist Dr
Benny J Peiser will speak about new and ongoing research on
Holocene
impacts and civilisation collapse at the Main Lecture Theatre in
the
School of Electrical and Computer Science, Dean Street, Bangor.
===================
AN EVENING OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL ACTIVITY:
NEAR EARTH OBJECTS & COSMIC IMPACTS ON EARTH
Thursday 11 March, 7.00 pm, Peter Jost Enterprise Centre,
Liverpool
John Moores University, Byrom Street, Liverpool
All are welcome and there is no charge for this meeting.
Refreshments will be available from 6.30 pm.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
COMETS AND ASTEROIDS: AN ASTRONOMICAL PERSPECTIVE
Mike Bode, Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores
University
Comets have been seen as portents of doom and destruction since
prehistoric times. Modern astronomy and astrophysics have shown
us the
true nature of these enigmatic objects, and their relatives, the
asteroids. In this part of the talk, I will describe the modern
astronomer's view of these objects, and their importance in our
understanding of the wider universe.
-----------
Professor Michael Bode is head of the Astrophysics Research
Institute
at JMU and currently chairman of the UK Standing Conference of
Astronomy Professors. His research work is mainly in the area of
novae and other exploding stars. He is also project director of
the
Liverpool Telescope (LT), which, when operational in the Canaries
next year, will be the World's largest fully robotic telescope.
The
LT will be a unique instrument for the observation of comets and
asteroids among many other astronomical programmes.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND EVOLUTIONARY EFFECTS OF COSMIC IMPACT
CATASTROPHES
Benny J Peiser, School of Human Sciences, Liverpool John Moores
University
During the last decade, most scientists have accepted the idea
that
hypervelocity impacts of extraterrestrial bodies on Earth can
trigger
hemispheric or even global environmental disasters. One of the
most
noticeable changes to the 1980s, which focused primarily on the
demise
of the dinosaurs and other mass extinctions, is the growing
concern and
risk assessment of the celestial threat to civilisation. In spite
of
this potential risk, terrestrial life has now, for the first
time,
developed the intelligence and technology to discern the mortal
dangers
from space and to devise effective strategies of planetary
defense.
================
IMPACTS OF ASTEROIDS AND COMETS ARE INEVITABLE: THE COSMIC THREAT
TO
CIVILISATION AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT
Benny J Peiser, School of Human Sciences, Liverpool John Moores
University
Wednesday, March 24th, 6.00 pm
Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre, University College London
90 years ago, on 30 June 1908, an erratic rock from space
measuring c.
60 meters, travelling at nearly 40,000 miles an hour entered the
earth’s atmosphere. At about 7:15am local time, the
extraterrestrial
visitor exploded some five miles over the Central Siberian
Plateau near
the Tunguska river. The cosmic disaster that followed was
awesome.
Impacting in the atmosphere, the explosion yielded the energy of
some
20 megatons of TNT, the equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima-size atomic
bombs. Within seconds, 2000 square kilometres of forest were
flattened,
1000 square kilometres of trees stood in flames. Had the object
exploded over St Petersburg instead, it could have killed
hundreds of
thousands of people.
During the long history of our planet, the Earth has been hit by
asteroids and comets many thousands of times. Only five
years ago, in
July 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter.
Civilisation
would not have survived had the 20 odd pieces of this comet
collided
with Earth rather than Jupiter. Current estimates suggest that
every
100,000 years or so Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) in the kilometre
range
collide with our world, triggering a global environemental
catastrophe.
Tunguska-sized objects, however, smash into the Earth every one
hundred
years or so.
Cosmic disasters have punctuated life on Earth repeatedly. It is
only
during the last twenty years, that we have become aware of our
precarious place in space. Many thousands of times, such
extraterrestrial calamities have devastated and overwhelmed the
Earth’s
environment. There is growing scientific evidence that more
recent
impact events may have led to widespread environmental downturns,
subsequently leading to the collapse of ancient civilisations.
Some of
Britain’s leading astronomers believe that
Super-Tunguskas, i.e.
multi-megaton showers of cometary debris, occur every 3000 to
5000
years. From a human perspective, this may sound a rather long
time. The
problem is, we do not know when the next major impact disaster is
going
to occur.
Since science tells us that impacts of asteroid and comets are
inevitable and just a question of time, what are we doing with
our
new-found awareness? In this talk, I will present the current
scientific knowledge about the hazards to civilisation due to
asteroids
and comets. I will also outline which technology is required to
discern
the mortal dangers from space and to devise effective strategies
of
planetary defense.
Dr Benny J Peiser is a social anthropologist at Liverpool John
Moores
University and a member of Spaceguard UK. His research focuses on
societal evolution and civilisation collapse. He has established
an
international profile as an expert on hypervelocity impact events
and
environmental disasters in historical and prehistoric times and
their
effects on cultural evolution. Recent publication:
"Comparative
Analysis of Late Holocene Environmental and Social Upheaval:
Evidence
for a Global Disaster around 4000 BP", in: Natural
Catastrophes during
Bronze Age Civilisations, edited by B.J.Peiser, T. Palmer and
M.E.
Bailey, British Archaeological Reports, International Series 728,
Oxford 1998.
For more information, please contact Professor Bill McGuiore
<ucfbkwg@ucl.ac.uk>