PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 31/2002 - 5 March 2002
----------------------------
"The researchers might be deluded by Mother Nature, whose
principal
object in life is to make fools of scientists."
--Lawrence Crum, Applied Physics Lab, University of
Washington
tsunami
Mostly buried now, or worn away to dust,
there once were many scars on Mother Earth.
Deep underground in Yucatan or North-West Cape
they can be found. The worst was long ago
when helpless inner planets shook
to the Late Bombardment's hail of rock and ice.
Was that the end of fire from space? Oh no!
only the intervals grew longer but still they came
and if they landed in blue ocean, even far from land.
they left their mark on cliff and strand as waves
from hell hurled rocks and sand far up on shore.
Human settlements and cities cluster on the edge
of continents. One day there'll be scant warning
as ocean's fist smites unwary ports and towns.
A tiny speck of cosmic dust will stir the waters
and leave as wreckage our ephemeral works and homes.
5.3.2002
Malcolm Miller
stellar2@cyberone.com.au
>
(1) SPANISH AMATEUR DISCOVERS A NEO WITH A BACKYARD TELESCOPE
Mark Kidger < mrk@ll.iac.es
>>
(2) GOING DEEP
Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 March 2002
(3) SILENT EARTHQUAKE IN HAWAII OFFERS CLUES TO EARLY DETECTION
OF
CATASTOPHIC TSUNAMIS
Stanford News Service < stanford.report@forsythe.stanford.edu
>>
(4) 'TABLE-TOP' FUSION REPORT ELICITS MIXED REACTION
The Washington Post, 5 March 2002
(5) OOPS: BUNGLED PRESS INFORMATION DOESN'T BODE WELL FOR UK NEO
CENTRE
Jonathan Tate < fr77@dial.pipex.com
>>
(6) BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
David James Johnson < starmanus@earthlink.net
>>
(7) AND FINALLY: FAYETTEVILLE SPEAKER DESTROYS GIANT ASTEROID
THREAT
John Michael Williams < jwill@AstraGate.net
>>
=================
(1) SPANISH AMATEUR DISCOVERS A NEO WITH A BACKYARD TELESCOPE
>From Mark Kidger < mrk@ll.iac.es
>>
Dear Benny:
Just a brief note to encourage people. One of "my"
"cometas_obs" mailing
list
observers has just discovered a NEO...
Mark
---------
A Spanish amateur astronomer discovers a nearby asteroid with a
back yard
telescope
When amateur astronomer Rafael Ferrando noticed a 18th magnitude
asteroid in
frames taken with his 10-inch telescope at PLA D'ARGUINES,
SEGORBE
(Castellon, Spain) he little imagined that it was no ordinary
asteroid. 2002
EA showed unusual motion and was rapidly put on the Minor Planet
Centre's
NEO Confirmation page.
The initial MPC orbit for this body shows that it is an
Earth-crosser and
will pass by at 8.5 million kilometres from the Earth on March
15th.
Between 1941, when Josep Comas-Sola made his 11th and last
asteroid
discovery from Barcelona (only the 13th made from Spain in all),
57 years
passed until the next accredited Spanish discovery in 1998. Since
then, a
dedicated band of Spanish amateur astronomers have quadrupled the
quantity
of Spanish numbered asteroids.
Up to now though no Spanish observer, amateur or professional,
had
discovered a NEO. The fact that a back yard telescope can still
make
important discoveries despite the many automated search
programmes should
encourage amateur astronomers everywhere that their work is still
useful.
2002 EA has an absolute magnitude of 22.4 and is thus around
130-m in
diameter.
==============
(2) GOING DEEP
>From Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 March 2002
< http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2787555.htm
>
A collision 65 million years ago left a huge crater in the
Yucatan
Peninsula. Scientists are drilling into it to learn how the
catastrophe
might have cleared the way for humans to walk the planet.
By Robert S. Boyd
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Scientists have begun drilling a mile-deep hole into
a huge
underground crater that was left by a mountain-sized asteroid or
comet that
slammed into Earth 65 million years ago and, researchers
theorize, wiped out
the dinosaurs.
Earlier this year, investigators reached the uppermost layer of
broken rocks
buried beneath Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula that were smashed,
twisted and
hurled about by the tremendous force of the collision.
The researchers hope to learn exactly what the asteroid did when
it
penetrated the Earth's crust in a fiery ball of unimaginable
violence. The
goal is to better understand how the impact devastated the global
environment, clearing the way for the rise of mammals, including
humans.
"Since we can't go back 65 million years in a time machine,
drilling down to
the 65-million-year level is the best we can do," said James
Powell, the
executive director of the National Physical Science Consortium at
the
University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
The ancient catastrophe marked "the transition between the
age of reptiles
and the age of mammals," said David Kring, a planetary
scientist at the
University of Arizona in Tucson and a leader of the drilling team
from
Mexico and the United States.
"Mammals were able to develop because the impact caused a
complete change in
the biological landscape of Earth," Kring said. "Then
evolution took
advantage of the change."
The smashed rubble, called breccia, was found half a mile below
ground,
about 25 miles southwest of the Yucatan town of Merida. The
crater is called
Chicxulub (pronounced cheek-shoo-loob) for the village located
over its
center.
Kring, a principal investigator in the Chicxulub Scientific
Drilling
Project, said the drill would bring up rocky cores about as thick
as a
baseball bat that would reveal the history of the ancient
disaster.
"For the first time, we will be able to see the entire
geology of the
structure, all the way down to the bedrock of the continental
crust," he
said.
Between the breccia and the bedrock, researchers expect to find a
thick
stony sheet that was melted by the intense heat of the long-ago
crash. The
volume of the molten material could have been as much as 24,000
cubic miles,
enough to fill Hudson Bay in Canada or the Gulf of California
with lava.
"People have a hard time understanding the scale of this
impact," Kring
said. "It moved millions of tons of rock, some of it more
than 60 miles.
Material 20 miles beneath the surface was affected by the
shockwave. A large
part of the Earth's crust was uplifted and folded by the
blast."
Poisonous gases, dust, smoke and fire from the impact
contaminated the air
and blotted out the sun, sending the climate reeling. Such
changes, which
lasted from months to years, even decades, killed more than 70
percent of
plant and animal species.
Wary of another such calamity, astronomers have begun a search
for all large
"near earth objects" that might be on a collision
course with our planet.
For example, they spotted an asteroid the size of three football
fields that
streaked within 500,000 miles - twice the distance to the moon -
on Jan. 7.
If a space rock is detected early enough, scientists hope they
might be able
to deflect it with a nuclear-armed missile. Even a slight change
of course
could be enough for a far-off object to miss the Earth.
Powell, who is not a member of the Chicxulub project, said the
drilling
could clear up some mysteries, such as whether the space intruder
was a
comet or an asteroid.
Asteroids are rocky objects orbiting between Earth and Jupiter.
Comets are
balls of ice and frozen gas from beyond Pluto that periodically
swoop
through the solar system. Comets are considered more dangerous
than
asteroids because their enormous speed multiplies their power.
In addition, Powell said the drillers might find traces of
sulfur-rich rocks
in the crater, helping to explain why the atmosphere poisoned so
many living
creatures.
For more information, go to the NASA/UA Space Imagery Center's
Impact
Cratering Series Web site,
www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/impact-cratering/intro/ < http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/impact-cratering/intro/
>.
Robert S. Boyd's e-mail address is rboyd@krwashington.com
>.
Copyright 2002, Philadelphia Inquirer
============
(3) SILENT EARTHQUAKE IN HAWAII OFFERS CLUES TO EARLY DETECTION
OF
CATASTOPHIC TSUNAMIS
>From Stanford News Service stanford.report@forsythe.stanford.edu
>>
2/25/02
CONTACT: Mark Shwartz, News Service (650) 723-9296;
mshwartz@stanford.edu
>
COMMENT: Peter Cervelli, Geophysics (808) 937-8839;
cervelli@stanford.edu
>
Paul Segall, Geophysics (650) 725-7241 or (719) 538-4000 (Feb. 25
to March
1); segall@pangea.stanford.edu
>
EDITORS: The study, ``Sudden Aseismic Fault Slip on the South
Flank of
Kilauea Volcano,`` appears in the Feb. 28 issue of Nature. Photos
and images
will be available at < http://newsphotos.stanford.edu
> (slug: ``Silent
Quakes``).
EMBARGOED UNTIL WEDNESDAY, FEB. 27, AT 2:00 P.M. (U.S. EASTERN
TIME)
Relevant Web URLs:
< http://kilauea.stanford.edu/
>
< http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/
>
Silent earthquake in Hawaii offers clues to early detection of
catastrophic
tsunamis
A slow-moving earthquake recently observed on Hawaii`s Kilauea
Volcano could
become a model for predicting catastrophic tsunamis in the
Pacific,
according to a new study by geophysicists from Stanford and the
U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS).
Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers explained how they
were able
to detect a ``silent`` or ``aseismic`` earthquake on Kilauea`s
southern
flank in November 2000 using data from the Stanford/USGS global
positioning
system (GPS) network on the Big Island of Hawaii. The magnitude
5.7 quake
was a relatively slow-moving event that lasted about 36 hours and
caused the
southern flank of the volcano to slide nearly 3.5 inches (8.7
centimeters)
into the sea.
``We call them `silent` earthquakes because the ground doesn`t
shake, and
they produce no seismic waves,`` said Paul Segall, a Stanford
professor of
geophysics and co-author of the Feb. 28 Nature study.
``We don`t know what triggers them, but we do know that the
Kilauea event
was the first silent earthquake ever observed in a volcanic
environment,``
he added.
``Fortunately, no one felt the earthquake on Kilauea,`` noted
Peter
Cervelli, who joined the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory last
fall shortly
after receiving a doctorate in geophysics from Stanford.
``In fact, without instruments like our GPS observers, we never
would have
known that the Kilauea event occurred,`` added Cervelli, lead
author of the
Nature study.
In a companion feature in the Feb. 28 issue of Nature, research
geophysicist
Steven N. Ward of the University of California-Santa Cruz
estimated
Kilauea`s southern flank to be nearly equal in size to a
half-mile-thick
slice of Rhode Island. Had that massive chunk of land suddenly
collapsed
into the ocean instead of sliding just a few inches, it could
have generated
an enormous wall of seawater - or tsunami - powerful enough to
threaten
coastal cities as far away as California, Chile and Australia,
according to
Ward.
A catastrophic flank collapse of an oceanic volcano happens
somewhere in the
world every 10,000 years on average, Ward added, but none has
been caught in
its early stages until now.
Controversial rainstorm
In their study, Segall and his colleagues suggested that the
Kilauea quake
might have been triggered by a torrential storm that dumped
nearly 3 feet (1
meter) of rain on the Big Island on Nov. 1, 2000.
In the 1960s, geologists showed that injecting fluid deep into
the ground
can cause a fault to fail - thus triggering a small earthquake.
According to the Nature study, the intense, 24-hour rainfall that
inundated
the Big Island on Nov. 1 may have had a similar effect on the
Hilina/Holei
Pali fault system located some 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) beneath
Kilauea
Volcano. GPS data revealed that the fault suddenly began to
rupture on Nov.
8 - one week after the storm.
``When water penetrates the relatively dry upper regions of the
Hawaii
crust, it eventually gets to the water table and causes it to
rise,``
observed Cervelli. ``This raises the pressure of the water
throughout the
volcanic edifice.``
He noted that rainwater might have produced a ``pressure pulse``
that
percolated through the crust for seven or eight days until it
reached the
fault zone.
``What we`re hypothesizing could have occurred - although we`re
certainly
not wedded to this conclusion - is that, when the pressure pulse
began in
early November, it propagated slowly down the fault zone and
raised the
pressure there,`` Cervelli said. ``This had the effect of opening
the fault
a little bit and bringing it closer to failure.``
The mechanism is very similar to what happens when a hot glass is
placed
upside down on a wet counter top, Segall explained.
``The heat from the glass heats up the air inside the glass,`` he
noted.
``This raises the pressure and can cause the glass to slide
around on the
counter.``
Cervelli conceded that linking the Kilauea earthquake to the
heavy rainfall
event is controversial.
``It`s not inconceivable that the rainfall event had a triggering
role in
the slip event,`` he noted, ``but before we go out on a limb and
say
definitively that it is our opinion that rainfall of this
magnitude can and
has triggered silent earthquakes, we would like to first flesh
out our model
a bit more and, second, to observe multiple events so that we can
correlate
them with rainfall.``
Tsunami warning
``We don`t know how common silent earthquakes are because, up
until now, we
haven`t had the capability or tools to measure them,`` Segall
explained.
He pointed out that detecting the silent quake on Kilauea would
have been
impossible a few years ago, before Stanford and the USGS
established a
permanent network of instruments capable of monitoring
millimeter-sized
movements on the volcanic surface on a daily basis.
``Now that we have the networks in place, we`re finding that
silent
earthquakes are popping up in all kinds of surprising places -
like
volcanoes - that we didn`t know about before,`` Segall added.
``This event
did not produce a tsunami, but if we can detect potentially
catastrophic
ground motion in its early stages, we might be able to issue
tsunami
warnings in the future.``
Ward agreed, noting that the silent earthquake detected by Segall
and his
colleagues could be interpreted as the early stage of a
catastrophic flank
collapse that may occur one day on Kilauea.
"People should not lose sleep over large but rare natural
hazards," Ward
wrote. "They should not run blind either, particularly when
a useful eye
exists. The world`s oceanic volcanoes are stages best not left
unwatched.
For now, GPS provides one of the sharpest views."
Other co-authors of the Nature study are Stanford graduate
student Kaj
Johnson; Michael Lisowski of the USGS Cascades Volcano
Observatory in
Vancouver, Wash.; and Asta Miklius of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano
Observatory
in Hawaii National Park. The study was funded with grants from
the USGS and
the National Science Foundation.
By Mark Shwartz
===========
(4) 'TABLE-TOP' FUSION REPORT ELICITS MIXED REACTION
>From The Washington Post, 5 March 2002
< http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38511-2002Mar4.html
>
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 5, 2002; Page A01
Nuclear physicists split yesterday into camps of excitement and
skepticism
after a group of scientists announced they may have created
nuclear fusion
-- the awesome power that fuels the sun -- in a device the size
of two
coffee cups stacked one atop the other.
The work, so simple and elegant, could create a virtually endless
source of
clean, renewable energy and change the world. But it also could
be just
another false alarm, like a 1989 report about "cold
fusion" that drew huge
attention before being dismissed as a dud.
"At first blush, we were very excited about it," said
Lawrence Crum, a
physicist at the Applied Physics Lab at the University of
Washington in
Seattle. Closer examination suggested that skepticism was in
order, he said,
adding, "the researchers might be deluded by Mother Nature,
whose principal
object in life is to make fools of scientists."
Creating "table-top" nuclear fusion has been one of the
most heated races in
modern physics. Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
in
Tennessee were careful yesterday to couch their claims in
caveats, stressing
that they needed to be confirmed and, even if true, may not
necessarily mean
nuclear fusion power plants were imminent.
Unlike the previous controversy, in which researchers went public
before
opening their findings to scientific scrutiny, the current report
is being
published in this week's issue of the journal Science, and was
first
evaluated by independent scientists. Still, such scientists as
Nat Fisch, a
physicist who directs Princeton University's Graduate Program in
Plasma
Physics, were unconvinced.
"The peer review process is important, but it's
uneven," he said. "The fact
an article is peer reviewed is not sufficient to guarantee
quality."
Richard Lahey, one of the scientists who conducted the
experiment, countered
that criticism of the experiment was "political" and
that the finding
threatened scientists with big budgets for expensive,
conventional fusion
techniques.
The scientific journal yesterday issued some unusually blunt
advice to both
camps: "The premature critics of the result, and those who
believe in it,
would both do well to cool it, and wait for the scientific
process to do its
work."
Both nuclear fusion and its cousin fission convert matter into
energy
according to Albert Einstein's famous formula e = mc{+2}.
In fission, heavy atoms such as uranium break up into lighter
particles. In
fusion, two light atoms, such as hydrogen, are fused into a
heavier element.
In each case, some matter gets converted into energy.
Fission requires elements such as uranium, which are difficult to
find,
purify, handle and store, and it leaves radioactive waste that
can last for
decades or centuries. So scientists have long sought to acquire a
simple
means of nuclear fusion: Hydrogen is plentifully available and
potentially
safer.
But fusion is difficult to achieve, since very high levels of
energy are
required to force atoms of hydrogen together. So far,
non-military, man-made
fusion has required high-energy accelerators or lasers.
In the Oak Ridge experiment, the researchers took advantage of a
phenomenon
called sonoluminescence. When sound waves are passed through
certain
liquids, they can create bubbles that pop with a flash of light.
The phenomenon is not completely understood, but the scientists
thought they
could use the popping of the bubbles to create the temperatures
and
pressures needed for fusion. The researchers created a sound wave
in a
container filled with the chemical acetone. The wave created
oscillations --
and powerful vacuums -- about 20,000 times a second.
"If you have a bottle of water sitting at the desk and you
put a stopper in
the top and start pulling a vacuum, at some point it will start
to boil at
room temperature," said Lahey, a professor of engineering at
Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. He explained the vacuum
created in the
experiment "is way, way down below that. That liquid wants
to boil, it's
hungry to boil; if you can just get it started, that bubble will
grow like
mad and evaporate."
The scientists fired neutrons into the liquid to "seed"
tiny bubbles that
rapidly grew to about twice the size of the period at the end of
this
sentence. As the sound wave oscillated, the low-pressure vacuum
turned into
a high-pressure zone and the bubble collapsed with intense force,
creating
temperatures as hot as the sun for a few trillionths of a second
-- enough
to force atoms of a form of hydrogen in the acetone together.
The researchers couldn't see the actual fusion -- they only
measured its
byproducts. These included a form of hydrogen called tritium, and
neutrons
that are produced in such reactions. While the experiment used up
more
energy than it produced, Lahey hopes scientists will find ways to
use the
energy produced to repeat the process -- setting up a chain
reaction.
"It could be a tremendous resource for mankind," said
Lahey. "Potentially,
it really has the potential to solve a lot of the problems we've
had in
nuclear energy with radioactive waste, safety, and the
availability of fuel.
If this thing can be made to work, those problems could go
away."
The publication of the results was delayed when other scientists
at Oak
Ridge could not reproduce the findings.
"I view this as an interesting research paper at this point
that needs to be
verified," said Fred Becchetti, a professor of nuclear
physics at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He added dryly,
"somehow the words
'table top' and 'fusion' trigger a reactive response" among
the media.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(5) OOPS: BUNGLED PRESS INFORMATION DOESN'T BODE WELL FOR UK NEO
CENTRE
>From Jonathan Tate fr77@dial.pipex.com
>>
Benny,
Part of NSC press release from Leicester:
"The space industry launch on the Friday comes hot on the
heels of the
Government's announcement in January that the National Space
Centre would be
home to the UK's new Near Earth Observation Information Centre.
The first
phase of the NEO Centre, which includes a website and information
desk
within the Space Centre, will be launched later this Spring.
"
Doesn't bode well for expertise in Near Earth "Objects"
does it!
Jay Tate
International Spaceguard Information Centre
============
(6) BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
>From David James Johnson starmanus@earthlink.net
>>
Dear Benny,
The Williams - Harris article appears only natural a response
from a
Government sponsored scientist. The impact of a major asteroid
may very well
be many years away, yet it may not. The unrealistic approach of
NASA to the
Problem at times is extremely vague, as they tip toe around the
issues and
insure funding and job security.
The NASA goal to identify 90% of 1KM or larger asteroids within a
10 Year
time period, to me appears merely a pacification of the U.S.
Congress as
well as the general public. To say there are merely 1200 such
objects may
very well be misleading, and to say that the threat is so small
that we do
not need to develop the technology to defend the Earth from these
objects
borders on the ridiculous. However, in this case, if they are
wrong, as most
suspect, there will be no one left to prosecute after the fact as
the disaster may be
complete.
The immediate problem is not the 1KM or larger asteroids, but the
smaller or
Tunguska class type objects. These are the ones that may hit
without any
warning, and, as we have seen, can effect a city sized area.
Using the 1908
event as a guide, if one were to land in any large city, then the
events in
New York in September would appear minor in comparison, as we
would be
looking at a death rate of vastly more than incurred by the
terrorist.
So do as much or as little as we should until we have identified
an object
which will hit us. This proposes that we will have time to
respond, when in
reality, if we see it coming, it will already more than likely be
too late.
As far as funding a response, this is not just a problem of the
U.S. It's an
international problem, and paying for the protection of our world
falls to
all nations.
Regards,
David Johnson
==========
(7) AND FINALLY: FAYETTEVILLE SPEAKER DESTROYS GIANT ASTEROID
THREAT
>From John Michael Williams [ jwill@AstraGate.net ]
Hi Benny.
> (12) AND FINALLY: SCIENTIST CALMS ASTEROID
"FEARS".....
> ...
> A person in the United States is much more likely to
> be asked to speak in Fayetteville, Ark., Harris said, a
chance of about 1
in 200,000.
It should have been entitled: "Fayetteville Speaker Destroys
Giant Asteroid
Threat"
--
John
jwill@AstraGate.net >
John Michael Williams
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