PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet DIGEST, 8 March 1999
--------------------------
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The United Nations is organising
the biggest financial aid
package to Germany since the end of the
second world war.
However, efforts are being hampered by
global currency turmoil.
Ever since news broke, world markets
have been in freefall,
unable to cope with the loss of such an
important financial
centre and with rumours that the
insurance bill for rebuilding
the city could reach E$10,000
billion." (THE SUNDAY TIMES
CHRONICLE OF THE FUTURE, 7 March 1999)
(1) GOD COMES OUT IN SUPPORT OF EURO-SCEPTICS: SUNDAY TIMES
PREDICT IMPACT DISASTER OVER BANK OF EUROPE IN
2031
THE SUNDAY TIMES CHRONICLE OF THE FUTURE, 7
March 1999
(2) NEAR EARTH OBJECTS DYNAMIC SITE (NEODyS)
Andrea Milani Comparetti <milani@copernico.dm.unipi.it>
(3) NASA/JPL's NEO PROGRAMME OFFICE HOME PAGE RELEASED
Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
(4) ROBONET: GLOBAL NETWORK OF ROBOTIC TELESCOPES
Michael F. Bode <mfb@astro.livjm.ac.uk>
(5) THE LIVERPOOL TELESCOPE
http://www.livjm.ac.uk/astro/
(6) LIFT OFF: LIVERPOOL'S ANSWER TO CAPE CANAVERAL
BBC News Online
(7) HERE COMES THE SUN
FLORIDA TODAY, 8 March 1999
(8) NASA HOSTS 30TH LUNAR AND PLANETARY SCIENCE CONFERENCE IN
HOUSTON
Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
==================
(1) GOD COMES OUT IN SUPPORT OF EURO-SCEPTICS: SUNDAY TIMES
PREDICT
IMPACT DISASTER OVER BANK OF EUROPE IN 2031
From THE SUNDAY TIMES CHRONICLE OF THE FUTURE, 7 March 1999
http://www.chronicle-future.co.uk
COMET CATASTROPHE
18.08.2031
The German nation was in mourning yesterday after a comet
fragment hit
the city of Frankfurt. The death toll is expected to exceed
100,000. A
swath of surrounding countryside was flattened by the explosion
of a
fragment of comet the size of a terrace of houses. 'It's far
worse than
Hiroshima,' says Dag Tegmark, director-general of Uni-Aid. The
comet
fragment was first spotted by spy sattelites in low-Earth orbit.
However, its speed was so great - estimates put it between
250,000 and
290,000kmh - that there was no possibility of issuing a useful
warning.
People accross a large area of western Europe reported a blinding
blue
fireball ripping through the sky before the comet fragment
disintegrated
at an altitude of 9.5km. The sound of the blast, estimated to be
equivalent to a 10-megaton bomb, was heard as far away as London,
Rome
and Moscow.
The United Nations is organising the biggest financial aid
package to
Germany since the end of the second world war. However, efforts
are
being hampered by global currency turmoil. Ever since news broke,
world
markets have been in freefall, unable to cope with the loss of
such an
important financial centre and with rumours that the insurance
bill for
rebuilding the city could reach E$10,000 billion.
Copyright 1999, The Sunday Times
==================
(2) NEAR EARTH OBJECTS DYNAMIC SITE (NEODyS)
From Andrea Milani Comparetti <milani@copernico.dm.unipi.it>
Dear Benny,
I have just sent out an announcement, which you should also have
received, on a new NEO information service. I would like to ask
your
help in advertising it. This not only because we of course would
like to have recognition of our work, but also because this kind
of
transparency (glasnost) is essential in this business. If the
people
not belonging to the rather exclusive club of specialists of
orbit
determination get the impression that they are not being
informed,
on an issue as critical as the orbits of the NEO (and their close
approaches to the Earth), the credibility of the scientific
community as a whole could be undermined, and this is a more
subtle
but very dangerous version of the crying wolf story.
Thus I would like to underline the political point we are making,
in
giving free and immediate access to all data, including the
source
data (observations), the intermediate results (such as the
residuals
of the observations best fit), the final results (orbits, close
approaches), the algorithms (documented in papers at least
submitted
for publications and available as preprints), and the software
used
in the computations, (which is free, as in the last week
announcement). All this is updated daily, accessible on internet
with a supposedly user friendly interface (to be improved, as it
is
always the case, but good enough to begin) for everybody to look
at,
and check, and redo our computations, and criticize whatever
small
thing we might have forgotten. I do not want to be the only one
to
do these computations: I would be scared by the responsability
this
implies. Even less, however, I would accept that someone else
claims
that he knows better and should be the only one allowed to do
them.
Yours Andrea Milani
Dipartimento di Matematica
Via Buonarroti 2
56127 PISA ITALY
tel. +39-050-844254 fax +39-050-844224
E-mail: milani@dm.unipi.it
WWW: http://virmap.unipi.it/~milani/homemilani.html
----------------
NEAR EARTH OBJECTS DYNAMIC SITE (NEODyS)
From Andrea Milani Comparetti <milani@copernico.dm.unipi.it>
wrote:
ANNOUNCEMENT: Near Earth Objects Dynamic Site (NEODyS)
An online information system for near-Earth objects
WHERE: http://newton.dm.unipi.it/neodys
The Near-Earth Object Dynamics Site (NEODyS) is a new online
information service for near-Earth asteroids (NEA's). At its
core,
NEODyS is a database of orbital and observational information for
each NEA; however, the distinguishing feature of the system is
the
degree to which the information is made available on the World
Wide
Web.
In NEODyS every NEA has its own "home page" containing
sections
devoted to the object's orbit, observations, planetary close
encounters, additional services, and physical information. The
orbital information includes the keplerian elements with
uncertainties, the absolute magnitude, minimum orbital
intersection
distance (MOID), nodal distances, period, etc. The observational
section provides a summary of the objects observations, including
error statistics, arc length, and outlier rejections. Further
hyperlinks lead to pages with all of the observations used to
compute the orbit, along with important information such as
residuals, weights, and outlier rejections.
One of the most valuable features of the system is the database
query facility. One may of course look up an asteroid by name or
number, but it is also possible to search for all asteroids
possessing some desired orbital characteristics. This makes it
easy,
for example, to find all of the asteroids which are large enough
to
be hazardous, and can come close to the Earth, yet are
effectively
lost.
On each object's home page any planetary close approaches along
the
nominal orbit during the period 1975-2075 are listed. This
information is also searchable permitting one to find, as another
example, all the objects that come with in 0.05 AU of the Earth
during the next ten years.
NEODyS provides services to the observer in the form of standard
ephemeris as well as a graphical observation prediction. The
observation prediction provides a graphical depiction of the
uncertainty region on the celestial sphere, including nonlinear
effects, which can be of paramount importance in the recovery of
lost or nearly lost objects.
The database is automatically updated on a daily basis as new
observations are released from the Minor Planet Center. All of
the
data files needed to reproduce the NEODyS results are freely
available, even the OrbFit software used for orbit determination
(at http://copernico.dm.unipi.it/orbfit.html
).
The system is being upgraded and improved continously, comments
and
suggestions are welcome. NEODyS has been created, and is being
maintained, by A. Milani and S. Chesley Department of
Mathematics,
University of Pisa, Italy.
=================
(3) NASA/JPL's NEO PROGRAMME OFFICE HOME PAGE RELEASED
From Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
Forwarded from Don Yeomans, Near-Earth Object Program Manager
The Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory is pleased to announce the availability of its
Internet
website:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov
The information on this site is comprehensive and
up-to-date. A
table of so-called Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) gives,
for
the next 100 years, the times and close approach distances along
with their associated uncertainties, the minimum possible close
approach distances and Earth impact probabilities. This table,
which
is updated on a daily basis, contains more than 375 PHA close
Earth
approaches to within 0.2 AU. Interactive features on this web
site
allow users to generate their own tables of comet and asteroid
positions and orbital elements and check for unknown objects in
their fields of view. In addition, there is extensive
information
on Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) including the operational NEO
discovery
teams and the ongoing and planned spacecraft missions to comets
and
asteroids (with links to their web sites). There is a
section on
recent NEO news, frequently asked questions, definitions, essays
upon the importance of NEOs, images of comets, asteroids, impact
craters, and meteorites, as well as more than 30 links to other
relevant international web sites.
=================
(4) ROBONET: GLOBAL NETWORK OF ROBOTIC TELESCOPES
From Michael F. Bode <mfb@astro.livjm.ac.uk>
Hi Benny,
I thought that you and your colleagues on your newsletter
circulation might be interested in a project that is expecting a
decision on funding this week.
ROBONET is a global network of 6 robotic telescopes (the
Liverpool
Telescope which is already funded being one) to be used for
general
astronomy in the "time domain" (i.e. involving rapid
response to
targets of opportunity, systematic monitoring of objects for
significant times, simultaneous observations with space-borne
observatories etc). Part of its programme would undoubtedly be
observations of comets and asteroids and it might be a model for
SPACEGUARD-type facilities in the future. The bid is for Joint
Infrastructure Fund monies and is led by Prof Keith Horne at St
Andrews. 17 UK universities are in the consortium, including
JMU.
Further info can be found at
http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~kdh1/jifpage.html
(including an
animation of ROBONET in action and a standard letter of support).
If you could publicise ROBONET to your colleagues as soon as
possible, that would be excellent. If they are minded to write a
note of support to Prof Ian Halliday (Chief Exec of the Particle
Physics and Astronomy Research Council - ian_halliday@pparc.ac.uk)
copied to Prof Arnold Wolfendale who will chair the panel that
will
prioritise bids for the Joint Infrastructure Fund this Wednesday
(11th) that would be very helpful (probably best to request copy
to
Wolfendale be forwarded by Prof Halliday at this stage). A draft
letter is on the web page.
Our feeling is that currently the ROBONET bid is lower profile
with
the panel than competing large projects and we would like to
redress
the balance a little if at all possible.
All the best,
Mike
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Michael F.
Bode
| email: mfb@astro.livjm.ac.uk
Head of
Astrophysics
| Tel: +44 (0)151-231 2920
Liverpool John Moores University |
Astrophysics Research
Institute
|
0976 313770
Twelve Quays
House
| FAX: +44 (0)151-231 2921
Egerton
Wharf
| WWW: www.livjm.ac.uk/astro/
Birkenhead L41
1LD
|
United
Kingdom
|
===================================
(5) THE LIVERPOOL TELESCOPE
From http://www.livjm.ac.uk/astro/
JMU's Astrophysics Research Institute is currently building the
world's largest robotic telescope. Details of the Liverpool
Telescope and its manufacturer, TTL, can be found at:
http://www.livjm.ac.uk/astro/.
Research Access
The Liverpool Telescope will be the world's largest robotic
telescope. It is currently being manufactured by a subsidiary
company of Liverpool John Moores University, Telescope
Technologies
Ltd. Agreement has been reached with the CCI and the IAC that the
telescope will be sited on La Palma. The position of the
telescope
at the ORM observatory will be "down the hill" from the
INT. The
scientific goals of the Liverpool Telescope are:
Monitoring of variable objects on all timescales from years to
seconds
Rapid reaction to unpredictable phenomena and their systematic
follow up.
Simultaneous or coordinated with other facilities, both ground
based
and from space.
Small scale surveys and serendipitous source follow up
In addition we will be promoting educational and Public
Understanding of Science use of the telescope.
MORE INFORMATION at http://www.livjm.ac.uk/astro/
==============================
(6) LIFT OFF: LIVERPOOL'S ANSWER TO CAPE CANAVERAL
From the BBC News Online
http://news.bbc.co.uk
Rocket man's dreams take off
One of the UK's leading amateur rocketeers has successfully
launched his
latest craft. Steve Bennett watched his four-metre (14ft) Tempest
climb
high into the sky over Merseyside just after 10:15GMT on Friday.
The
50lb rocket took a little under 20 seconds to reach an altitude
of
around 900 metres (3,000 ft) - a ceiling imposed for air safety
reasons
- before returning safely to Earth by parachute.
It landed on the sands by the River Mersey. The launch brought
loud
cheers from supporters and sponsors watching the blast-off on the
Altcar
Military Range near Hightown, north of Liverpool.
"It has done exactly what it was meant to do, so I am very,
very happy,"
Mr Bennett said after the launch. "My space dream is no
longer pie in
the sky.
Steve Bennett: Countdown to a dream
"I have dreamt about moments like this for all my life and
this is what
keeps me going through all the difficult times when I can't even
get
someone to give me a tin of paint to finish the rocket."
The launch was a test flight for a bigger rocket that will
blast-off
later in the year.
Future flights
It is just 12 months since Mr Bennett's £70,000 Starchaser 3
rocket
crashed in flames on a Dartmoor military range.
Tempest cost a more modest £6,000. It was packed with Salford
University
physics students' experiments. They will provide the invaluable
information on the materials, parachutes and computers that will
eventually be used on the next Starchaser.
"We'll be launching that to an altitude of 36,000 metres
(120,000ft).
"It's a three-stage reusable rocket. It's got a large
payload area so
we'll be putting a lot of experiments on board.
"We are going to try out a variety of concepts for a
satellite launch
vehicle we are working on."
The Starchaser is likely to be launched in America - probably in
the
Black Rock desert.
Professional approach
The former sugar worker with Tate and Lyle has attempted to put
his
organisation on to a more professional footing by forming his
26-man
team into a limited company.
There is a $10m (£6.25m) prize on offer from a foundation for
the first
non-governmental body to launch three people 100 km (60 miles)
into
space. The university lecturer believes he is now well on course
to
claim the prize.
"We are looking for cheap access to space - especially for
the UK," he
said.
"There is a lot of money to made in launching small
satellites and,
indeed, there are a lot of people wanting to take day trips into
space.
We're going to cash-in on that."
A delighted Mrs Bennett, who was at the Altcar range to see the
successful launch of Tempest, said she was sure her husband would
want
to be the one on board the rocket which went for the ultimate
prize.
"He's not the nutter people make him out to be," she
said. "He would
have to make sure it worked. We will have to see who goes up, but
I
suppose it is his ultimate dream."
Copyright 1999, BBC
===========================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_292000/292522.stm
==============
(7) HERE COMES THE SUN
From FLORIDA TODAY, 8 March 1999
http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/030899b.htm
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The dreaded Y2K computer bug hasn't even
arrived
and already there's something else to worry about: Solar storms.
It seems this year - or next - is likely to bring the onset of
another
two years of sun storms called the solar maximum. The
electromagnetic
storms occur every 11 years or so, and can cause serious problems
in
orbiting satellites, and in power grids and other sensitive
technology
on Earth.
FULL STORY at
http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/030899b.htm
================
(8) NASA HOSTS 30TH LUNAR AND PLANETARY SCIENCE CONFERENCE IN
HOUSTON
From Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
March 4, 1999
Laura Rochon
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone: 281/483-5111)
Release: J99-6
Special "Planetary Scientists Meet the Press" Workshop
set for March
14
New evidence regarding the possibility that an ocean once existed
on
Mars will be among this year's topics of interest at the 30th
Annual
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), March 15-19. The
conference, which is chaired by Carl B. Agee and David C. Black,
will be held at Johnson Space Center's Gilruth Center and the
University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL).
The "Planetary Scientists Meet the Press" workshop at
the Lunar and
Planetary Institute (LPI) on Sunday, March 14 will kick off the
week's activities. The workshop will bring together scientists
and
journalists to foster more effective communication of scientific
information to the public.
Technical sessions will be held at the Gilruth Center, including
oral presentations on continuing investigations of the Martian
meteorites, results from the Mars Global Surveyor mission,
discussions about astrobiology and origins of life in the
Universe,
findings about Jupiter's moon Europa, and goals for near-future
Mars
missions (the Mars Surveyor 2001 orbiter, lander and rover, and
the
European Space Agency's Mars Express). A special plenary session
featuring the Masursky Lectures will highlight the scientific and
technical accomplishments made during the Galileo mission to the
Jovian system, and preview Cassini's exploration of the Saturnian
system.
Special sessions will include the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
(NEAR) flyby of the asteroid Eros, new views of our Moon by the
Clementine probe, and Lunar Prospector's mapping and measurements
of
the magnetic and gravity fields of the Moon's surface. New
perspectives on Mars Global Surveyor results regarding Martian
volcanism, possible lakes and oceans, the planet's polar regions
and
other terrain will be discussed, as well as future missions to
understand how Earth-like planets form and evolve to become
habitable. Poster presentations are scheduled for Tuesday and
Thursday evenings at UHCL's Bayou Building.
Additional information on the conference events including
registration and text of abstracts can be found at the LPI
website:
http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/meetings/LPSC99/
To register for the media workshop, contact Pam Thompson by
e-mail
(thompson@lpi.jsc.nasa.gov)
or by phone at: 281/486-2175.
---------------------------------------
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