PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet DIGEST 29 May 1998
------------------------
INDIA, PAKISTAN & ELEMENT 92
"A Type 0 civilization [that's us] is like a
spoiled child, unable
to control its self-destructive temper tantrums and
outbursts. Its
immature history is still haunted by the brutal
sectarian,
fundamentalist, nationalist, and racial hatreds of
the past
millenia. A type 0 civilization is still split along
deep fracture
lines created thousands of years in the past.
The main danger faced by a Type 0 civilization
occurs after its
discovery of the chemical elements of the periodic
chart.
Inevitably, any intelligent civilization in the
galaxy will discover
two things: element 92 (uranium) and a chemical
industry. With the
discovery of uranium comes the possibility of
annihilating
themselves with nuclear weapons. With the creation
of a chemical
industry comes the possibility of polluting their
environment with
toxins and destroying their life-giving atmosphere.
Given the fact that astrophysicists do not see
evidence of life in
nearby star systems, even though Drake's equations
predict the
existence of thousands of of intelligent
civilizations in our
galaxy, it is possible that our galaxy is filled
with the ruins of
Type 0 civilizations which either settled old
grudges and jealousies
via element 92 or else uncontrollably polluted their
planet."
Michio Kaku (Visions: How Science will Revolutionize
the 21st
Century, 1997)
-----------
(1) PROTEST AGAINST OFFENSIVE REMARKS ...
Danica Anderson <anderson@cistron.nl>
(2) ... AND AN APOLOGY
Benny J Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>
(3) PREPARING FOR IMPACT
Press Agency News <http://www.pa.press.net>
(4) SPACEGUARD UK UPDATE
Jonathan TATE <fr77@dial.pipex.com>
(5) HOW SPACE SCIENCE COULD HELP REVOLUTIONISE LIFELONG LEARNING
H.H. von Muldau, PFIAT RESEARCH, GERMANY
(6) HUBBLE TAKES FIRST IMAGE OF A POSSIBLE PLANET AROUND ANOTHER
STAR
AND FINDS A RUNAWAY WORLD
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
===============================
(1) PROTEST AGAINST OFFENSIVE REMARKS ...
From Danica Anderson <anderson@cistron.nl>
I was amazed that Mr. Grondine's description of the House
subcommittee.
What I was amazed at is how he would offer to everyone on an
email
knowledge sharing topic on how he cured his headache. Going to a
'go-go' Bar, ogling ladies as objects, and not subjects, was
definitely
off the mark for this email route.
Mr. Peiser, I was so pleased with the depth and quality of all
topics
and information shared except this recent email. Not only was it
offensive but it damaged the high value this email route was
known for.
It was refreshing for me to gather material and information
without
much scrubbing of the predominant male assumptions and thought.
Even
Barry Cunliffe's work on the Oxford Illustrated History of Europe
barely incorporated the depth and breadth of the matriarchy found
in
prehistoric cultures. But, in his research and editing gender was
not
an issue, the topic and subject at hand was carefully opened and
presented.
I hope Mr. Peiser you will continue to edit all materials with
your
fine hand. This one escaped your scrutiny.
Sincerely,
Danica Anderson, M.A., CCCJS #16713 anderson@cistron.nl
------------------
(2) AND AN APOLOGY
From Benny J Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>
Dear Danica Anderson
Please accept my apoligies for my inadvertence to edit
yesterday's
report by Ed Grondin on the House of Representatives' Space
Subcommittee Hearing. While there is very rarely the ned to edit
messages sent to me for circulation on the CCNet, I agree that
Ed's
last paragraph was offensive (and in any case unrelated to the
subject
matter of his report). I certainly should have asked Ed to delete
this
paragraph. Please let me re-assure you that I will do my best in
order
to avoid such inattentiveness in the future.
With kind regards
Benny J Peiser
=======================
(3) PREPARING FOR IMPACT
From Press Agency News <http://www.pa.press.net>
By Gabriel Roberts, PA Features
Comet disaster movies just don't get much bigger then Deep Impact
and
Armageddon - both hurtling to a cinema near you this year.
But is the current Hollywood obsession with asteroids just an
attempt
to rival sinking boats and tentacled aliens - or should we start
building our bunkers and stocking up on tinned foods in
anticipation of
the end of the world?
Deep Impact, from Steven Speilberg's new studio, is the story of
the
world's reaction to a death sentence as it faces a comet so
massive
that its impact with Earth will cause an 'ELA' - an Extinction
Level
Event. Cinema-goers are promised the thrill of seeing a colossal
tidal
wave engulf New York.
According to Dr Benny Peiser, social anthropologist and member of
Spaceguard UK, a comet (sic) hits the earth every few thousand
years -
and there is no way of telling when the next one will strike.
"The last big asteroid impact was in 1908 in Siberia. It had
the impact
of 2,000 Hiroshima bombs. Two hours later and it would have wiped
out
St Petersburg, killing 200,000 people," he says.
"No scientist can give you an honest guarantee that nothing
will happen
in the next few days, weeks or months. We simeply haven't got a
clue
when the next impact could happen."
But Dr Peiser believes we will experience a similar 'little'
impact in
the next few decades, but because we don't know when the last
large
impact was, it is impossible to calculate exactly when the next
one is
due.
"We have to take it seriously because it is inevitable. We
will be hit,
it is just a question of timing. Maybe it only happens every
100,000
years but what if this is year 99,000?" he says.
"This is a matter of global concern, it doesn't affect one
particular
counrty, it affects all mankind."
"We are currently approximately scanning ten per cent of the
skies but
we should be able to scan the entire environment to detect these
objects. If something is going to hit us, ideally we need a
20-year
lead time to deal with the problem. I very much doubt if we just
had
one year there would be anything we could do. There is no
planetary
defence system in place. This needs to be developed.
"The global community must be prepared to take this
seriously and spend
the money that is required to protect our little world."
In fact Dr Peiser believes that there is evidence to suggest that
the
collapse of the first civilizations of mankind in the early
Bronze Age
may have been triggered by a meteor storm. There are certainly
plenty
of apocalyptic legends - even the Book of Revelations makes
mention of
stars falling from the sky. Some of Britain's leading astronomers
believe that multi-megaton showers of cometary debris occur every
3,000
to 5,000 years.
Dr Peiser questions whether there is intelligent life on earth as
politicians continue to bury their heads in the sand over the
issue.
"For the first time in the evolution of life a species has
become aware
not only of the danger it faces but also has the intelligence and
capability of protecting ourselves. We bear a huge responsibility
not
just for the survival of our own species but for life."
So, what exactly are asteroids and comets? Asteroids are thought
to be
minor planets 'left over' from the creation of the solar system.
Comets
have been described as 'dirty snowballs', moade up of ice and
dust that
can orbit the sun, and also occasionally hit the earth.
The world has had a near miss once already this year. On March 12
we
awoke to the news that an asteroid meassuring 1,500 metres in
diametre
and called 1997 XF11 was in an orbit that would bring it
uncomfortably
close to Earth in about 30 years time.
It it hit dry land the prediction was a breakdown in socities
around
the globe - a return to the Dar Ages.
Fortunately for civilisation, the next day astronomers gave the
all
clear. Two scientists discovered astronomical films taken of the
object
which indicated that XF11 would actually miss us by 600,000 miles
in
the year 2028.
Professor Mark Bailey, director of Armagh Observatory, Northern
Ireland
agrees with Dr Peiser that sooner or later an asteroid is going
to run
into the earth.
He envisages a future where a device can actually land on the
asteroid
and use powerful jets to deflect it away. If faced with little
time it
might be necessary to blast it out of the skies but it would
still be
important to know its structure and composition.
"It is a problem that should be addressed internationally.
It would be
a shame if the only knowledge about these kind of objects was
restricted to NASA," he says.
David Hughes, Reader in Astronomy at Sheffield University,
reckons the
image of the tidal wave engulfing New York in Spielberg's Deep
Impact
is spot on. "The tidal wave would cause much more damage
than the
initial blast," he says.
Hughes is part of the Near Earth Object Consortium and says while
NASA
counterparts have been full of praise for Deep Impact they have
been
less enthusiastic about the scientific basis of Armageddon. But
he is
personally sceptical about the forecasts of asteroid doom.
"At the rate population is increasing on the planet there
will be
global famine in 20 years time anyway. The problem is what some
astronomers are saying is essentially if you don't fund my idea
all
civilisation is going to die off. People do tend to play the
disaster
card in order to get the money."
"We have taken a few pictures from a long way away but what
we need to
do is find out what they are like inside. We need to land on the
surface and do detailed analysis to find out if they are solid
objects
or piles of rubble. The cost of an asteroid search is in the $ 48
million (dollars) bracket. Perhaps we could have a 'you've seen
the
fim, now support the scientists' fund!'
Patrick Moore is another astronomer who is not overly concerned
about
the threat of a NEO.
"It's possible but frankly I'm sceptical. The Earth is a
fairly small
target. If we saw it soming in time we might be able to divert it
but
we might not see it until it was too late. You are much more
likely to
be run over by a bus. In fact there is no known record of a human
being
hit by a NEO although an Egyptian dog was hit in 1912 - a case of
being
in the wrong place at the wrong time."
But the last word goes to another grand old man of space - Sir
Arthur C
Clarke. He noted that the dinosaurs became extinct because they
had no
planetary defence system. We will deserve to become extinct, if
we
don't have one."
(C) 1998 PA News Ltd.
======================
(4) SPACEGUARD UK UPDATE
From Jonathan TATE <fr77@dial.pipex.com>
It certainly seems that our American cousins are beginning to
take the
problem of asteroidal and cometary impacts more seriously
now.
Combined with the excellent news from Japan, this is all most
encouraging, but, of course, the UK is playing no part in any of
it.
This is an enormous shame, as the UK has so much to offer.
Indeed,
many of the significant names in the field, both past and
present, were
and are British. In addition, facilities at the AAO (in
particular,
the UKST) would greatly contribute, for minimal cost, to the
expanding
global effort.
We at Spaceguard UK are awaiting a response from Sir Crispin
Tickell’s
letter to the Prime Minister. At least this one can’t
be ignored as
thoroughly as previous attempts to jolt the government into
action, but
who knows what the outcome will be? Sir Crispin remarked in
his letter
to me that “I am afraid that you are now on the back of a
tiger, and
all I can say is that I hope that you enjoy it.” Certainly
my employers
(the Ministry of Defence) are beginning to get distinctly nervous
about
the amount of publicity that Spaceguard UK is getting at the
moment.
We must be achieving something!
“Deep Impact” (love it or hate it), and recent
television coverage has
produced an increase in enquiries and statements of support from
the
public. Anyone willing to listen is being encouraged to put pen
to
paper, and to write to his or her local Member of Parliament.
An article linking “Deep Impact” to reality is due to
appear in “Modern
Astronomer” magazine next month, and, if read by enough
people, could
stir a few stalwart souls!
We were hoping to host Tom Gehrels for an evening in London in
August,
but sadly he is now unable to stop over on his return trip from
India. Hopefully he will be able to visit this country sometime
soon,
and I would be grateful for an indication of who might be
interested in
listening to him speak when he does..
“Impact 4” should be ready for distribution to
Spaceguard UK members in
a couple of weeks. If anyone has anything that they think might
be
interesting to the lay readership, as well as the experts, please
let
me know. For anyone who is not yet a member – shame on
you! The
current Patrons, and Associate and Visiting membership are as
follows:
Patrons
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Prof Sir Bernard Lovell
Patrick Moore
Sir Crispin Tickell
Associate Members
Mark Bailey
Mike Baillie
Sue Bowler
Victor Clube
Simon Clucas
Matthew Genge
Monica Grady
Simon Green
Peter Grego
John Gribbin
Nigel Holloway
David Hughes
Ian Lyon
Michael Martin-Smith
Robert Matthews
Tony Mc Donnell
Bill Napier
Benny Peiser
Paul Roche
Julian Salt
Robin Scagell
Oscar Schwiglhofer
Peter Snow
Duncan Steel
Emma Taylor
Jasper Wall
Iwan Williams
Jerry Workman
John Zarnecki
Visiting Members
Walter Alvarez
David Asher
David Balam
Peter Brown
Greg Canavan
Andrea Carusi
Tom Gehrels
Wynn Greene
Eleanor F. Helin
Lindley Johnson
Bob Kobres
David Levy
Alain Maury
Bill Mullen
Steven Ostro
Michael Rampino
Hans Rickman
Joel Schiff
Carolyn Shoemaker
Gerrit L. Verschuur
Pete Worden
Don Yeomans
As far as government action in the UK is concerned, it is
unlikely that
anything will happen until the politicians detect a groundswell
of
public opinion (meaning VOTES). The only way to generate
the necessary
groundswell is to spread the word, by any means possible, in an
accurate and "un-tabloid" fashion. That is what we are
trying to do.
Any assistance would be gratefully received.
Jay Tate
=====================
(5) HOW SPACE SCIENCE COULD HELP REVOLUTIONISE LIFELONG LEARNING
H.H. von Muldau: The hierarchy of traditional structures and the
interdisciplinarity of space science. ACTA ASTRONAUTICA, 1997,
Vol.40,
No.2-8, pp.523-534
PFIAT RESEARCH, DIEBURGER STR 83, D-64380 ROSSDORF, GERMANY
The occidental educational system of teaching is hierarchically
organized and divided in distinct relations for the different
fields
of the science. The school administration as well as the
administration of the ministry of education use the common
mechanisms
of transferring knowledge from the scientist, to the teacher, to
the
student. It is mostly facts knowledge and the rules of the
mechanisms
are dogmatically fixed. Space age includes the tremendous
increase of
knowledge duplication. Lifelong learning does not obey the rules
of
hierarchically organized classroom education. One of the results
of
the traditional school system is the fact, that young people in
the
preschool age are addicted to learning, but five years after the
experience of classrooms the majority have as result a 'I want to
know nothing' conduct. As the last public outreach of the IAF in
OSLO
showed, the activity of young people and their articipation in
educational activities decrease between the 15th and 16th year of
life. In contrary the rare examples of project orientated
earning,
f.e. at the 'Helene Lange School' in Wiesbaden, Germany, or at
the
'Claremont McKenna College' in Claremont, CA USA, show, that the
interest for learning remains with no break while students reach
the
universities. The paper discusses, how the experience of space
science an be used to motivate young people for learning. (C)
1997
International stronautical Federation. Published by Elsevier
Science
Ltd.
==================
(6) HUBBLE TAKES FIRST IMAGE OF A POSSIBLE PLANET AROUND ANOTHER
STAR
AND FINDS A RUNAWAY WORLD
From NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington,
DC
May 28, 1998
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-5017)
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410/338-4514)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their
first direct look at what is possibly a planet outside our solar
system -- one apparently that has been ejected into deep space by
its parent stars.
The discovery, made by Susan Terebey of the Extrasolar
Research Corporation in Pasadena, CA, and her team using Hubble's
Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS),
further challenges conventional theories about the birth and
evolution of planets, and offers new insights into the formation
of our own Solar System.
Located in the sky within a star-forming region in the
constellation Taurus, the object, called TMR-1C, appears to lie
at
the end of a strange filament of light that suggests it has
apparently been flung away from the vicinity of a newly forming
pair of binary stars.
At a distance of 450 light-years, the same distance as the
newly formed stars, the candidate protoplanet would be ten
thousand times less luminous than the Sun. If the object is
a few
hundred thousand years old, the same age as the newly formed star
system which appears to have ejected it, then it is estimated to
be 2-3 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest gas giant planet in
our Solar System.
Also possible is that the object is up to ten million years
old, the same age as other young stars nearby, in which case it
may be a giant protoplanet or a brown dwarf star. A brown
dwarf
star is a small star that has failed to sustain nuclear fusion.
The candidate protoplanet is now 130 billion miles from the
parent stars and predicted to be hurtling into interstellar space
at speeds up to 20,000 miles per hour (10 kilometers/sec) --
destined to forever drift among the Milky Way's starry
population.
Hubble researchers estimate the odds at two percent that the
object is instead a chance background star.
"If the results are confirmed, this discovery could be
telling us gas giant planets are easy to build. It seems
unlikely
for us to happen to catch one flung out by the stars unless gas
giant planets are common in young binary systems," said
Terebey.
"The results don't directly tell us about the presence of
any
terrestrial planets, like Earth," she adds.
"However, we believe
gas giants do influence the formation of much smaller rocky
planets."
Current models predict that very young giant planets are
still warm from gravitational contraction and formation
processes.
This makes them relatively bright in infrared light compared to
old giant planets such as Jupiter. Even so, young planets
are
difficult to find in new solar systems because the glare of the
central star drowns out their feeble glow. Young planets
ejected
from binary systems would therefore represent a unique
opportunity
to study extrasolar planets with current astronomical technology.
The discovery also challenges conventional theories that
predict gas giant planets take millions of years to coagulate
from
dust in space. Instead, it favors more recent ideas that
large,
low-density planets may condense out of gas very quickly, at the
same time their parent star does.
"This observation pushes back the clock on planet formation
and offers short time scales which allow us to see how things
form. This provides valuable new clues to the origin of our
Solar
System," says Terebey.
The candidate protoplanet was accidentally discovered by
Terebey and colleagues while studying Hubble infrared images of
newly formed protostars in a molecular cloud in Taurus. The
exquisite sensitivity and sharpness of NICMOS clearly revealed
the
object's pinpoint image. However, it might have been
dismissed as
a background star if not for the presence of a bizarre 130-
billion-mile-long filamentary structure that bridges the space
between the binary pair and the candidate protoplanet.
"I said to myself, 'This is really weird, what in the world
could it be?'" recalls Terebey. She speculates it
could be a
tunnel the runaway object burrowed through a dust cloud
surrounding the stars. This created a "light
tube" which channels
light from the stars deep inside their dusty cocoon - like a
light
beam traveling through a length of fiber optic cable.
This brought Terebey to the tantalizing possibility that the
planet had been flung into deep space by a gravitational
"slingshot" effect from its parent stars. This
could have
happened if the planet's orbit allowed it to rob momentum from
the
stars and pick up so much speed that it escaped the system,
similar to the way spacecraft perform gravitational
"slingshot"
maneuvers to pick up speed by flying close by a planet.
"We know that many triple star systems eventually toss out
the lowest mass star. And we can predict the speed at which
the
object should be moving, based on the separation of the binary
stars," said Terebey.
Future observations call for images taken at a later date, to
confirm the object's predicted movement across the sky. In
addition, the spectrum of the object will tell whether the object
is a background star, brown dwarf, or something whose spectrum is
less easy to predict, such as a giant protoplanet.
"We will just have to wait and see if future observations
confirm this picture," said Terebey. "However it
turns out, we
have come to appreciate that protoplanet ejection by young binary
stars ought to happen, and it offers a new way to search for
giant
planets."
"These future observations will be critical in verifying
that
this object is truly a planet and not a brown dwarf," said
Dr. Ed
Weiler, Director of the Origins Program at NASA Headquarters,
Washington, DC. "We are sharing this preliminary data
with the
public at a very early stage in the research process because of
its potential importance and because of the compelling nature of
the image. If the planet interpretation stands up to the
careful
scrutiny of future observations, it could turn out to be the most
important discovery by Hubble in its 8 year history".
The members of the research team include Susan Terebey
(Extrasolar Research Corp.), Dave Van Buren, Deborah L. Padgett,
Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA (JPL), Terry Hancock (Extrasolar
Research Corp.), and Michael Brundage, JPL.
The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc.
(AURA)
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency (ESA).
- end -
NOTE TO EDITORS: Images to accompany this release are
available
to news media representatives by calling the Headquarters Imaging
Branch on 202/358-1900.
NASA photo
number:
Color: 98-HC-191
Images and information about this discovery can also be found on
the Internet at: http://oposite.stsci.edu/1998/19
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