PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 103/2002 - 6 September 2002
---------------------------------
"If Ferris makes one point, he makes it again and again:
Don't
overlook "the backyard stargazer who searches with a
telescope for
previously undiscovered asteroids and comets." These thought
adventurers
gazing up at the night sky from backyards all over the world are
"simultaneously engaged in two missions - a study of our
origins and a
reconnaissance that just might bear on our survival."
--Jim Bencivenga, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 September
2002
(1) MILITARY TAKES ASTEROID THREAT SERIOUSLY
UPI Science News, 5 September 2002
(2) ATMOSPHERIC EXPLOSION PUZZLES SPACE EXPERTS
Associated Press, 5 September 2002
(3) ASTEROID SIBLINGS ODDLY GROUPED BY ORIENTATION
Space.com, 4 September 2002
(4) COMETS BREAK UP FAR AND NEAR
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
<NASANews@hq.nasa.gov>
(5) EINSTEIN'S SPEED OF GRAVITY IDEA TESTED
BBC News Online, 6 September 2002
(6) SEEING IN THE DARK
The Christian Science Monitor, 5 September
2002
(7) 9/11
Sir Arthur C Clarke @sri.lanka
(8) NGST
Alex Storrs <astorrs@towson.edu>
(9) WHAT TO DO?
Michael Martin-Smith <martin@lagrangia.karoo.co.uk>
(10) PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2001 NEO WORKSHOP in JAPAN
Isobe Syuzo <isobesz@cc.nao.ac.jp>
==============
(1) MILITARY TAKES ASTEROID THREAT SERIOUSLY
>From UPI Science News, 5 September 2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020905-042322-5227r
By Scott R. Burnell
UPI Science News
ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Celestial objects crossing
Earth's orbit
threaten society in ways far more realistic than the doomsday
scenarios
Hollywood portrays in films such as "Armageddon," an
Air Force general said
Thursday.
The most immediate threat is from smaller objects hitting the
atmosphere and
exploding, said Brig. Gen. Pete Worden, vice director of
operations at Air
Force Space Command.
Military sensors detect many such explosions annually. About 30
of the
yearly impacts are large enough to equal the blast of at least
1,000 tons of
dynamite, he told the Workshop on Scientific Requirements for
Mitigation of
Hazardous Comets and Asteroids.
"(Some of these) release between 3 and 10 kilotons (of
energy), roughly
comparable to the Hiroshima bomb," Worden said.
"This is significant because we're seeing a proliferation of
nuclear
weapons, and (these blasts) are in the class of those
weapons."
One such impact occurred over the Mediterranean Sea this past
June, Worden
said, when new nuclear powers India and Pakistan were ready to
wage war over
the disputed Kashmir region.
If the 20-kiloton blast had occurred over Southwest Asia, it
might have
triggered a nuclear exchange before the U.S. government or other
agencies
with sophisticated sensors could have announced the true cause,
he said.
The U.S. military wants to work more closely with scientific
groups for
rapid dissemination of data on such near-Earth objects, Worden
said. The
Department of Defense is developing a NEO information
clearinghouse and
warning center as part of the existing missile warning and space
object
tracking complex in Cheyenne Mountain, Colo., he said.
Meteor storms, a more energetic form of events such as the annual
Leonid and
Perseid meteor showers, also present a real hazard, Worden said.
The showers
are caused by a trail of dust and small debris left by comets,
and storms
occur when the trail is particularly dense. An extremely strong
storm is
capable of damaging satellites, especially the very valuable
Global
Positioning System, he said.
Improved space surveillance is the key to spotting and possibly
avoiding
such hazards, and military sensors play a role here, he said.
The current generation of digital camera-like sensors could scan
the entire
sky in about a week, he said, and systems under development in
Canada and
the United States might be able to do the same job in only hours.
If larger objects are detected approaching the planet, it should
be possible
to determine their basic composition with radar, said Wlodek
Kofman of the
Laboratoire Planetologie in Grenoble, France. Measuring the
scattering of a
radar signal from fractures and other discontinuities in a meteor
or comet
would help show the difference between a solid object, a
"rubble pile" of
smaller pieces or other possibilities, Kofman told the workshop.
Knowing an object's make-up could be vital in picking the proper
method for
redirecting it. A small rocket motor that would easily divert a
solid body,
for example, might break up a rubble pile into a cloud of objects
headed for
Earth.
As for diverting the "planet killers" Hollywood focuses
on, researchers
should focus on rockets and other methods far more conventional
than the
screenwriter's choice of a nuclear weapon, Worden said.
The most important thing for researchers to do is work out a
command and
control structure for determining issues such as who sounds the
alarm and
who would pay for a diversion scheme, he said.
The NEO threat is real enough that researchers have to fight the
"giggle
factor" that arises when policy leaders first hear about the
issue, he said.
Scientists should arm themselves with as broad a spectrum of
information as
possible on realistic threats before trying to educate the public
or
lawmakers, he said.
The workshop, sponsored by NASA, the University of Maryland, the
National
Optical Astronomy Observatories and several companies, seeks to
increase
understanding of NEOs to find effective ways of diverting or
disrupting any
objects that could threaten the planet. The group expects to
publish a
recommended timeline of research necessary to meet that goal by
2030.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
==============
(2) ATMOSPHERIC EXPLOSION PUZZLES SPACE EXPERTS
>From Associated Press, 5 September 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020906/ap_wo_en_po/australia_sky_flash_1
BRIGHT Bright blue flash and loud booms in sky over southern
Australia
puzzle space experts
ADELAIDE, Australia - Astronomers on Friday were investigating
reports from
southern Australia of a bright blue flash and loud booms. One
said it
probably was a comet, while another suggested it was debris from
a space
mission.
Dozens of people along Fleurieu Peninsula, about 100 kilometers
(60 miles)
south of Adelaide, said they say the flash about 6 p.m. (0830
GMT) Thursday.
The witnesses said the light was followed by a smoke trail and
two loud
booms that shook the ground.
Astronomer Bryan Boyle said Friday it was probably a meteor
breaking up, and
probably came within 30 kilometers (20 miles) of hitting the
ground.
But Colin Norris, director of Australian International UFO
Research center,
said its color and course suggested it was more likely debris
from a space
mission re-entering the atmosphere.
Astronomers were expected to begin a more detailed investigation
of the
incident, including a possible search for material that might
have hit the
ground.
Copyright 2002, AP
================
(3) ASTEROID SIBLINGS ODDLY GROUPED BY ORIENTATION
>From Space.com, 4 September 2002
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_siblings_020904.html
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
Within a family of more than 200 asteroids cleaved from a larger
space rock
in some long-ago catastrophe, siblings are mysteriously grouped
into two
categories defined by sharply different rotation orientations, a
new study
shows.
The finding reveals a puzzling void of knowledge about how
asteroids form
and evolve.
Researchers had expected that each rock in the so-called Koronis
family of
asteroids would spin at some randomly determined rate. This
action would be
a result of the chaos of their birth, and the axis of each
asteroid's
rotation would point in some random direction. The family was
originally
created in a collision between two large asteroids, experts
generally agree.
MIT researcher Stephen Slivan examined changes in brightness of
ten Koronis
asteroids, caused by the objects' non-spherical shape and changes
in
sunlight reflection as they rotate. The technique is akin to
spinning a
potato under a spotlight: Its sides reflect more light than its
ends.
Measuring the time between peaks and dips in brightness provides
a rotation
rate and other information.
Slivan found seven of the 10 asteroids clumped into two groups
based on
their rotation rates. Three larger asteroids revolved about their
axes in
about 14 hours, while four smaller rocks took about 8.5 hours, on
average,
to complete a rotation.
More significant and perplexing was that all ten asteroids were
fairly
neatly divided into two groups based on the orientation of their
spin axes.
Most objects in the solar system rotate about an axis that is not
perfectly
aligned with that of the Sun. Earth, for example, is tilted about
23.5
degrees.
In the sample of Koronis asteroids, Slivan found six whose axes
generally
point one way while four point in a distinctly different
direction.
"I was looking for a subtle effect," he said of these
so-called spin
clusters. "This hits you in the face."
The results, which will be detailed in the Sept. 5 issue of the
journal
Nature, generate questions rather than supplying answers.
"The fact that the spin clusters exist at all tells us that
even what we
thought we understood about family formation and/or what happens
afterwards
is at best very incomplete, because we have no consistent
explanation at
present for the observed clustered spin distribution,"
Slivan told
SPACE.com.
Of the likely collision that created the family, Slivan said the
amount of
energy released was "much, much greater than anything in
human experience,
so much so that we don't really understand how the process
unfolds."
Like most asteroids, the Koronis family orbits the Sun between
Mars and
Jupiter. Astronomers are eager to learn more about the
characteristics of
such asteroids so they can consider how best to divert or destroy
one that
might someday be found on a collision course with Earth. Further,
grasping
the evolutionary history of asteroids would improve understanding
of the
solar system's development.
The Koronis family has a history of presenting puzzles, including
one
regarding the timing of its creation.
One of its largest family members, Ida, is peppered with craters,
a scene
some researchers think indicates the initial birth must have
taken place
three billion years ago or more. But Ida has a moon, Dactyl, that
other
scientists say must have been created in that initial collision.
Yet Dactyl,
they say, can't be more than 100,000 years old.
Slivan speculates that the spin clusters might be the result of
subsequent
collisions, which could have generated asteroidal grandchildren
with similar
spin rates. Or, he suggests, some effect over time might
gradually nudge
asteroids with random spin characteristics toward those observed
in the
study.
Only a broader study of asteroids outside the Koronis family will
fully
answer these questions.
"For now it's a big puzzle," he said, adding that any
solution is "quite a
ways off in the future."
Copyright 2002, Space.com
=============
(4) COMETS BREAK UP FAR AND NEAR
>From NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
<NASANews@hq.nasa.gov>
Donald Savage
Headquarters,
Washington
September 5, 2002
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-6278)
RELEASE: 02-158
COMETS BREAK UP FAR AND NEAR
Some comets may break apart over and over again in the farthest
reaches of
the solar system, challenging a theory that comets break up only
occasionally and not too far from the Sun, says a researcher from
NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
A system of comets called "sungrazers," named for their
orbit that closely
brushes the Sun, reveals important clues about how these bodies
break up.
Most sungrazing comets are tiny -- the smallest could be less
than
10 meters (30 feet) across -- and move in a highway-like
formation of comets
that pass near the Sun and disintegrate.
Dr. Zdenek Sekanina, senior research scientist at JPL, reports in
the
September 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal that many
sungrazer comets
arrive at the Sun in clusters and on parallel paths. He
emphasizes that such
tiny fragments would have disintegrated if they had come so close
to the Sun
on an earlier trip. Therefore, the parents of these tiny
sungrazers must
have broken up after their previous encounter with the Sun and
continued to
break up far from the Sun on their journey through the solar
system.
Sekanina's sungrazer studies challenge an earlier theory that the
only place
these comets break up is very close to the Sun, as the strong
pull of its
gravity cracked their loosely piled chunks of dust and ice. The
gradual,
continuing fragmentation gives birth to all the sungrazers, the
most
outstanding examples of splitting comets.
"Astronomers never before realized that there could be a
fairly orderly
pattern in breaking up, so that one comet cascades into large
families of
smaller comets, and that this process could be an important part
of a
comet's natural life cycle," Sekanina said.
Sungrazers are not the only comets that can break up far from the
Sun.
Sekanina points to new observations of comet 57P/du
Toit-Neujmin-Delporte,
whose fragmentation has led to the formation of a similar, though
less
prominent, highway of tiny comets. All fragments separated from
the comet
beyond the orbit of Mars.
Images taken by the European Space Agency's and NASA's
Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory have shown the many tiny sungrazing
comets. A movie
showing two of these comets can be found at:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/LASCO/c2_comets.mpg
Nearly seven years' worth of images from the solar observatory
revealed more
than 400 sungrazers in the Sun's immediate neighborhood. Sekanina
estimates
that currently there may be as many as 200,000 sungrazer comets
the size of
the ones the observatory detected.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is a project of
international
cooperation between the European Space Agency and NASA. The
spacecraft is
part of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics program, a
global effort to study the
interaction of Sun and Earth. The instrument that observed the
comets was
developed at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, with
collaborators
in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. JPL, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Planetary
Atmospheres program for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington.
More information on comets is available at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
=============
(5) EINSTEIN'S SPEED OF GRAVITY IDEA TESTED
>From BBC News Online, 6 September 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2238452.stm
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter
A ground-breaking experiment to measure the speed of gravity is
being
carried out. Thanks to a useful planetary alignment, physicists
hope to test the general
theory of relativity.
One of the assumptions of Einstein's famous theory is that the
speed of
gravity is equal to the speed of light.
It seems to be true, based on indirect evidence, but has never
been proven.
On Sunday, Jupiter will pass close to the light coming from a
quasar, an
object that appears star-like but which is in reality billions of
light-years away.
The planet's gravity should nudge the light coming from the
quasar, causing
it to appear to shift a little in the sky.
Astronomers hope to be able to measure this displacement - which
depends on
the speed of gravity.
Virgin Islands to Hawaii
They will do this by comparing the quasar's position with that of
other
quasars that are far away from Jupiter as seen on the sky.
Observations will be carried out using telescopes located in the
Virgin
Islands, Hawaii and Germany.
They include 10 Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescopes
run by the
US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the Max Planck
Institute's radio telescope in Effelsberg.
Quasars are very bright objects
If all goes well, the technique will be accurate enough to give a
useful
estimate for the speed of gravity.
The team, led by Sergei Kopeikin of the University of
Missouri-Columbia, US,
will not get another chance for a decade.
"We believe the general theory of relativity is correct and
that the speed
of gravity is equal to the speed of light," says Dr
Kopeikin.
"Japanese and Nasa scientists also will be looking as well
using other
telescopes around the world, so we'll be able to compare our
findings."
Curved space
Researcher Ed Fomalont, an astronomer at the NRAO, says there
could be some
surprises in store.
"If we find that the speed of gravity is faster than the
speed of light then
Einstein's theory of general relativity breaks down," he
told BBC News
Online.
The idea of testing whether gravity acts at the speed of light is
an
intriguing one, says Michael Rowan-Robinson, an astrophysicist at
Imperial
College, London, UK.
"Einstein's general theory of relativity is so dominant that
we all assume
gravity acts at the speed of light," he says. "But this
does need to be
tested."
"From Einstein's theory of gravity, that is his general
relativity theory,
we believe mass curves space and this can cause light to follow a
curved
path," he told BBC News Online.
"The first test of general relativity was to observe the
bending effect of
the Sun's mass on distant stars during an eclipse - Sir Arthur
Eddington in
1919 showed that the position of stars in the sky moved depending
on whether
the Sun was near their line of sight.
"The amount they moved was close to the general relativity
prediction,
confirming that Einstein's theory was on the right track."
He says the new experiment will do much the same thing using
Jupiter instead
of the Sun and quasars instead of stars.
Many quasars emit strongly at radio wavelengths, so can be
tracked very
accurately by radio telescopes.
"This means that by watching what happens to the positions
of the quasars on
the sky as the gravitational field of Jupiter moves past their
line-of-sight, the scientists can test other aspects of the
general
relativity theory," says Professor Shanks.
Relativity questions
One aspect is to check how soon the gravitational, space-curving,
effect of
Jupiter is "felt" by the space around it, through which
the quasar light is
passing.
This will be done by seeing if the movement of the quasar
positions caused
by Jupiter's space curving effect follows the predictions of
general
relativity.
"If they do, then this will be a proof that gravity's
space-curving effect
is transmitted at the speed of light," he adds.
"If the quasar positions do not move according to the
prediction of general
relativity then it will suggest that gravity's space-curving
effect
transmits at some other speed and place a question mark against
the whole of
Einstein's theory of general relativity."
Copyright 2002, BBC
===========
(6) SEEING IN THE DARK
>From The Christian Science Monitor, 5 September 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0905/p20s01-bogn.html
SEEING IN THE DARK:
How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth
from
Interplanetary Peril
By Timothy Ferris
Simon & Schuster
379 pp., $26
By Jim Bencivenga
Do you think about the stars when the sun is out? If so, you'll
find your
head in the heavens when your eyes are in this book.
And because Timothy Ferris writes knowledgeably and beautifully,
"Seeing in
the Dark" is also for anyone else who's the least curious
about what we see
when we look up at the night sky.
This is nothing new for Ferris. He's been illuminating in
numerous books and
articles, most notably, "Coming of Age in the Milky
Way," and "The Whole
Shebang."
As always, he brings the cosmic down to earth. This time, he
explains the
20th-century revolution in spectroscopic analysis of very distant
light from
celestial bodies through the personal experiences of hundreds of
astronomers, mostly amateurs.
Since most people don't know advanced calculus and quantum
mechanics, the
minibiographies provide a clear line of sight on the implications
of these
new discoveries.
The experience is like gazing at the Perseid meteor shower in
summer. At
first, the meteors are quite visible and just seeing them is
enough. But
then the imagination asks: Where did they come from? What are
they made of?
How did someone know they would arrive at just this time and in
just this
place out of the vastness of the cosmos?
Starting from planet Earth and extending out to the limits of the
visible
universe, Ferris launches into the night - from light cast by a
full moon
inside a drop of water on a Florida beach to photons that travel
14 billion
light-years before imprinting in the midnight darkness of our
skulls. He has
us look through the eyes of others to feel at home in our
universe with its
more than 100 billion galaxies, each with its billions of stars.
Ferris records the role of amateur astronomers from the ancient
Greeks,
through the advent of the telescope in the 16th century, to the
present. He
establishes their past and present contributions to the field of
astronomy
in an age when images from the $12 billion orbiting Hubble
telescope would
predominate.
He marvels at insights gained from their individual and
collective
curiosity. Both together and apart, they represent the innate
nature of
human beings to ask why. Through them, he is able to explain, or
at least
intelligibly introduce, concepts as varied as the northern lights
and black
holes.
If Ferris makes one point, he makes it again and again: Don't
overlook "the
backyard stargazer who searches with a telescope for previously
undiscovered
asteroids and comets."
These thought adventurers gazing up at the night sky from
backyards all over
the world are "simultaneously engaged in two missions - a
study of our
origins and a reconnaissance that just might bear on our
survival."
The stories, interests, and passions of these amateurs set
"Seeing in the
Dark," apart from the familiar orbit of astronomy texts.
Such interesting
lives create a gravitational pull that captivates anyone with a
trace of
scientific curiosity.
The band of characters Ferris fixes on queried the distant lights
of the
heavens. Educated or uneducated, rich or poor, whether they built
their own
telescope or had one built for them, these stargazers appear in
their
element, at the end of a telescope.
Amateurs like David Levy, Lubos Kohoutek, and Thomas Bopp have
comets
bearing their names as a reward for their efforts. Most labor in
anonymity.
Alan Hale (he put the Hale in the Hale-Bopp comet), and Edward
Emerson
Barnard (of Barnard's star fame) are amateurs who crossed over to
become
professional astronomers.
Born in Tennessee in 1857 and river-mud-poor Barnard literally
dived into
the Mississippi during the Civil War, foraging for food in sunken
ships.
Though he was illiterate and fatherless, his curiosity eventually
led him
heavenward where he made radical discoveries in the field of dark
nebula.
This is not a book one sits down and reads from cover to cover.
Best to take
it chapter by chapter, as if savoring constellation by
constellation a
star-studded night in the high desert of New Mexico. You don't
have to leave
the backyard of your imagination to appreciate the star furnace
in the Orion
Nebula, the counterspinning movements in the Virgo cluster, or an
asteroid
passing in front of the planet Neptune.
Since Einstein, physics has become cosmology and cosmology has
become
physics. The rise of relativity theory and quantum mechanics,
accompanied by
a technological revolution in instrumentation, created
information out of
not only visible light, but also radio waves and microwaves,
infrared and
ultraviolet light, and X-ray and gamma rays. This opened
humanity's eyes to
a whole new universe.
When looking into the farthest, darkest, invisible regions of the
cosmos,
Ferris helps us do so from our own backyard, with others.
* Jim Bencivenga is the organizer of the Monitor's Web discussion
groups.
Copyright 2002, The Christian Science Monitor
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(7) 9/11
>From Sir Arthur C Clarke @sri.lanka
Now that the countdown has started, I'd like to remind everyone
that it's
almost 30 years since I chose Sept 11 for the greatest
catastrophe in
history, with a comet impact on Italy (the opening of
<Rendezvous With
Rama>, 1973)
Moreover, in the same Chapter 1 I proposed the name SPACEGUARD,
which has
now been widely accepted.
For once, I hope to be a bad prophet!
Best Wishes,
Arthur Clarke 4 Sept
2002 (7 to go....)
===============
(8) NGST
Alex Storrs <astorrs@towson.edu>
It is interesting to read about the Next Generation Space
Telescope (NGST)
in the CCNet. When I left the Space Telescope Science Institute a
couple of
years ago, the people in charge of the project, from Bernie Seery
on down,
were adamant that NGST would not observe "moving
targets", that is, objects
in the solar system. The only exception would be observations of
Trans-Neptunian Objects at their stationary points. I argued
against this
restriction for several years, but in vain: the Powers That Be
don't want to
invest the resources necessary to implement the tracking system
necessary
for these observations. Unless they have changed their minds in
the last
couple of years, NGST is of no interest to anyone on CCNet.
Alex Storrs
Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Geosciences
Towson University
8000 York Road
Towson, MD 21252-0001
Tel. 410-704-3003
FAX 410-704-3511
=========
(9) WHAT TO DO?
>From Michael Martin-Smith <martin@lagrangia.karoo.co.uk>
Dear Benny,
Over the past 5 years or so, the idea that human civilisation
could be
catastrophically impacted by incoming Near Earth Asteroids
or Comets has
now been recognised by academia, the media, the public, and, at
last,
Governments .
As a result, there is a piecemeal but clear evolution of
programmes to
locate and track a growing number of potential impactors, which
is likely to
lead to most of the major larger threats being identified
within 10 years.
Aten class NEOs , and new Long Period comets, remain the most
evasive,
however, and are unlikely to be found , by solely terrestrial
means, with
suffiicient lead times for easy deflection.
I, and others in our Network, have proposed for some time
that the best and
most positive response to this hazard is to utilise the raw
materials
represented by comets and NEOs to build a dispersed human space
based
civilisation BEFORE any such impact ever takes place.
Be that as it may, it is clear that a good deal of in situ
research and
probing of many objects will be required before meaningful
deflection
strategies can be applied. This will require
innovations in space
technology to reduce costs and increase reliability . Some of
these
technologies - ion engine propulsion, improved auto navigation,
and enhanced
solar power for onboard systems have been developed in the Deep
Space 1
mission , while the NEAR mission to asteroid EROS 433
demonstrated the first
landing abilities - a sine qua non for any real in situ
research of
composition and consistency.
What is needed now, most urgently, for scientists, prospectors
and indeed
future would -be colonists, is a major reduction in costs of
launch - at
present, these run to tens of millions of dollars for a
small probe , and
more, of course for major , eg crewed missions.
Whether we want scientific study of NEOs in depth , trial of
deflection
options, or exploitation with a view to major new space industry,
we all
have one need in common - a major reduction in launch costs. A
concerted
effort by Governments, industry, and space scientists to develop
a low cost
reliable launch system would more than anything else remove the
last
remaining barrier to full hearted action against a
threatened Impact
catastrophe.
As China's space technologist Wang Xili has clearly stated
- Space is now
the fourth strategic area for Humankind - after Land, Sea,
and Air. Cheap
and reliable Access must be secured if we are to influence its
hazards and
opportunities in the human interest
The "giggle factor" of the asteroid/comet threat is now
dead - but fear of
exorbitant costs of a solution is very much alive and well!
Michael Martin-Smith
==============
(10) PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2001 NEO WORKSHOP in JAPAN
>From Isobe Syuzo <isobesz@cc.nao.ac.jp>
Dear Readers of CCNet:
You may remember that we held an International Workshop on
Collaboration and
Coordination among NEO Observeres and Orbital Computers at the
Kurashiki
City Art Museum, Japan (October 23-26, 2001. The proceedings of
this meeting
have now been published. The proceedings are available online at
http://www.spaceguard.or.jp/index_e.html.
Please have a look. If you need a
hard copy, you can get it by sending your postal address to Syuzo
Isobe:
isobesz@cc.nao.ac.jp.
I hope you will find the preceedings useful.
Best regards,
Syuzo Isobe.
Followings are the preface and recommendations.
Preface
The problem of NEOs threatening the Earth is receiving more and
more attention as the media and public become more aware of the
issue. NASA has conducted several workshops on the problem and
several reported close Earth approaches have been announced and
reported in the media. In addition, studies and workshops have
been conducted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the
United Nations Peaceful Usage of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS), the
United Kingdom Task Force and the Organization for Economic
Coordination and Development (OECD) Global Science Forum.
The initial attention to the problem of NEOs was generated by
scientists who competed through the peer-review process to
condust original research into the nature and motions of these
objects that represent the Earth's nearest neighbors. To a large
extent, the search for NEOs is still done in this somewhat
competitive environment and a certain amount of competition is
probably healthy. However, to the extent possible, the total NEO
international discovery effort would benefit from a certain
amount of collaboration and coordination. Once a fast moving
object is discovered by a particular observatory, it is often
more efficient for another observatory to provide the follow-up
observations necessary to secure its orbit. For example,
discovery sites cannot always follow-up every new object because
of weather problems, approaching daylight or a rapid motion into
the southern hemisphere.
At the Kurashiki meeting, we concentrated our efforts and
discussion on the effective coordination and collaborative
efforts for future work. An effort was made to allow comments and
suggestions by all the specialists on each of the three separate
Working Groups. We made an effort to allow enough time for each
presentation and the following discussion. Each Working Group
arrived at recommendations that would benefit the entire
international NEO research community.
As co-chair of the meeting, I would like to thank those who
worked so hard to make this meeting a success and in particular
the Japan Space Forum as a co-organizer, the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, the Kurashiki City, and National Space
Development Agency for their financial support, and the Ministry
of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology, the
Ministry of Environment, the Okayama Prefecture, the Okayama
City, the Bisei Town, the Education Committees of the Okayama
Prefecture, the Okayama City, the Kurashiki City and the Bisei
Town, the National Astronomical Observatory, the Institute of
Space and Aeronautical Science, the National Aerospace
Laboratory, the Astronomical Society of Japan and the Japanese
Society for Planetary Sciences for their support.
Finally, I would like to express my deep thanks to Dr. Donald
Yeomans for his extensive work as co-Chair of the Scientific
Organizing Committee. Without his support, this Workshop could
not have been successful.
Syuzo Isobe
Co-chair of Scientific Organizing Committee
=================================================================
Recommendations from the Kurashiki meeting
The meeting's goal was to provide recommendations to reduce the
risk of NEOs to our planet by discovering them as efficiently as
possible and as early as possible. While the problem of
mitigating an Earth threatening object is of obvious importance,
the search, follow-up and orbital computations must be the first
order of business.
The study of comets and asteroids is important for a number of
reasons including their role in providing the building blocks for
the outer solar system formation process, their contributions to
the Earth's oceans and atmosphere, and their role in modifying
the evolution of life on Earth. However, it is the ongoing threat
that they pose to Earth that concerns us here.
The threat of NEO collisions with Earth is an international
concern and the solution should be international as well. The
international community of scientists studying NEOs will make the
most collective progress if their efforts are coordinated.
This meeting brought together more than 20 international
specialists to discuss and make recommendations for improving the
efficiency with which NEOs are being discovered and followed-up
and to improve the process by which their motions can be
accurately extrapolated into the future. During the meeting,
three Working Groups were established. The Discovery Working
Group was chaired by S. Isobe, the Follow-up Observations Working
Group was chaired by A. Carusi and G. Valsecchi chaired the the
Orbital Computations Working Group. After considering the
discussions within the meeting itself as well as during the
Working Group sessions, each Working Group provided a list of
recommendations that should be seriously considered by the entire
NEO community. The discovery, follow-up and orbit computation
tasks that are currently ongoing for NEOs would become more
efficient if these recommendations were addressed.
Syuzo Isobe and Donald K. Yeomans
Co-chairs of the Kurashiki meeting
=================================================================
Recommendations from the discovery Working Group
Understanding that
1. The NEA detection rate has greatly increased
recently
2. Discovery teams have telescope systems of
different
capabilities
and realizing the need to coordinate systematic coverage of the
sky depending on telescope system capability, we note that an
essential first stage to this is a campaign to assess what is
currently being achieved. This can usefully include the
following:
1. coverage should be measured three dimensionally
e.g. sky
area times limiting magnitude
2. determining the accuracy of the reduced
brightness
3. determining the level of uniformity over the
detection area
(e.g. how this affects limiting
magnitudes, or magnitude
accuracy, in the centre of the
image compared to the edges.
4. shape of point spread function of stars,
including
comparison between different
surveys
5. comparison of detection algorithms between
different
surveys; to what extent do
different surveys' algorithms
detect same moving objects? (test
by exchanging images)
The optional strategy (down to the same limiting visual
magnitude) is maximizing sky coverage at a given magnitude. (As a
useful reference, an all-sky monthly survey to ~20.5 -
21.0 mag. for a decade would achieve the NASA goal of discovering
90% of all NEAs with H<18). Therefore, an agreement seems
desirable that multiple surveys with moderately similar
capabilities should aim for a similar limiting mag.
=================================================================
Recommendations from the Follow-up Working Group
It is widely accepted that:
1. Discovery of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) is an
important
endeavour owing to the possibility
of impacts on Earth,
sometimes with catastrophic
consequences;
2. Discovered objects need to be followed-up in
order to
refine the computation of their
orbits, so as to allow
their recovery at a future time;
3. Orbit computation is an essential prerequisite
for
identification of possible impacts
in the future, and this
identification needs to be
available several decades before
the actual impact.
Therefore, recognizing the importance of an effective follow-up
activity, an essentiol first stage to this include the following:
1. Steps be taken to minimize the length of time
between a
discovery observation and its
announcement on the NEO
Confirmation Page (CP) of the
Minor Planet Center;
2. Unique services to observers, involving possible
single-
point failure, should be mirrored
at other sites;
3. Observatories be encouraged to archive their
images and
publicize their precise observing
circumstances;
4. Details of negative observations should be
recorded along
with those of ``normal''
observations;
5. Observers following-up NEO-CP objects collaborate
more
closely, for example through the
NEO Coordination Page;
6. Observers make public the schedules of their
observing runs
as soon as they have this
information;
7. Telescopes in the 1-2m size range and larger
could be made
available in a timely manner for
astrometry and physical
characterization;
8. The MPC makes every effort in order to facilitate
the
follow-up work by, for example,
provide astrometry on the
NEO-CP and publicizing methods and
algorithms to allow
comparison with other similar
tools.
=================================================================
Recommendations from orbital computers Working Group
Understanding that
impact prediction is a complex and critical issue it
is desirable
that
1. independent techniques be applied to that
purpose;
2. these techniques be intercompared on suitably
chosen test
cases.
Understanding that
impact risk evaluation is a critical issue it is
desirable that
1. appropriate metrics be pursued taking into
account impact
probability and energy, as well as
time to event, to
facilitate the communication of
the risk to appropriate
personnel both inside and outside
the scientific community.
Recognizing that
there has recently been significant progress in initial
orbit
determination techniques for short arc and/or small number of
observations it is desirable that
1. methods be investigated for probabilistic
classification of
objects from the moment of
discovery;
2. methods be investigated for the optimization of
the follow-
up strategies from the moment of
discovery;
3. orbit determination methods used by the NEO and
orbital
debris communities be
intercompared.
=================================================================
Notes on the list of recommendations from the Follow-up Working
Group
1. Sometimes it happens that newly discovered
objects from the
US surveys need an immediate
follow-up, in a matter of
hours, and the delay in posting
the related information
makes it impossible to re- observe
them in the following
night from Europe and Japan.
2. The entire Spaceguard System is based on the
continuous and
accurate flux of information
originated by the observers
and the orbit computers. This flux
must not be interrupted,
and therefore essential services
in managing the
information must be duplicated
and/or mirrored.
3. Archival searches are becoming more and more
important for
the possibility to find
pre-coveries of newly discovered
objects. These extended archives
would also be a precious
resource in other astrophysical
fields. Images in the
archives must contain all the
information necessary for an
accurate reduction of data.
4. Negative observations are an important tool for
ruling out
the possibility of impacts, by
eliminating ``virtual
impactors''. In order to be
useful, such observations must
be treated as any other
observation, including all the
observing circumstances.
5. Coordination among follow-up observers sometimes
requires a
continuous, real-time connection.
The NEO Coordination Page
maintained at the Ondrejov
Observatory may act as a
``bulletin board'' for comments,
suggestions and planning
purposes during the observing
runs.
6. A more effective coordination of follow-up
activities
requires the knowledge of the
observing schedules of other
observers, in order to minimize
duplication of efforts and
maximize the number of useful
observations.
7. In many cases the discovered objects become
fainter and
fainter in a very short time. It
is therefore desirable
that ad hoc observational programs
be made available at
facilities able to reach faint
magnitudes, in the range 22-
24. At the same time, physical
observations of NEOs, needed
to characterize the objects,
should be more widely
conducted, and these observations
require powerful
instruments.
8. The current capabilities of observers and orbit
computers,
in terms of available software and
computing power, are
much better than in the past. The
work at the MPC and its
data policy, therefore, need to be
re-adjusted in order to
allow a more efficient and rapid
communication of all the
essential information on
observations and data handling.
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*
CCNet: A 10,000 MEGATON IMPACT DISASTER DURING THE HOLOCENE?
------------------------------------------------------------
"We haven't seen events of this magnitude in the Earth's
geological
record very often in the last million years," said James
Garvin, a
Goddard geologist and impact expert who also studies craters on
Mars. ...
According to Garvin it would take a 10,000 megaton explosion to
make a
crater the size of the Iturralde Structure. Such a large meteor
impact could
change climate by reducing temperatures in the same way as large
volcanic
eruptions."
--NASA News, 8 October 1998
"If it is an impact feature, it could be as recent as 5 to
10,000
years before the present."
--Compton Tucker, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 19
October 2000
(1) A 10,000 MEGATON IMPACT DISASTER DURING THE HOLOCENE?
Benny Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>
(2) NASA SCIENTISTS DETERMINED TO UNEARTH ORIGIN OF THE ITURRALDE
CRATER
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(3) INTRODUCTION
http://www.blueiceonline.org/blueweb/ice_2002.pdf
(4) BACKGROUND: THE 1998 EXPEDITION
Blue Ice Online
(5) THE ARAONA: WHO ARE THEY?
http://www.blueiceonline.org/
(6) THE HUMAN DIMENSIONS OF COSMIC IMPACT: ANALYSIS OF SOUTH
AMERICA'S MYTHS
OF THE "GREAT FIRE"
W. Bruce Masse, Los Alamos National Laboratory
==============
(1) A 10,000 MEGATON IMPACT DISASTER DURING THE HOLOCENE?
>From Benny Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>
Next week, the second scientific expedition to the Iturralde
Crater in the
Bolivian Amazon will attempt to substantiate the origins of this
8km wide
crater. NASA scientists and other researchers will try to confirm
their
assumption that the structure, which was identified 15 years ago
with
satellite imagery, is indeed an impact crater.
The Iturralde Expedition 2002 is one of the most important impact
crater
expeditions to date. If its cosmogenic origin can be
corroborated, it would
hold significant implications for mankind's most recent past - as
well as a
better understanding of the impact hazard.
What is fascinating about the crater are its geological features.
For a
start, the crater is superimposed on alluvial deposits dating to
the late
Quaternary (20.000-10.000 BP). Because of its stratigraphic
location above
these layers, Compton Tucker, one of the expedition's leaders,
has dated it
tentatively to between 10,000 and 5,000 years BP. In short, this
looks like
a very fresh crater indeed.
Other features such as an elevated rim, annular trough, and
central uplift
are characteristics of complex impact structures.
Clearly, if Iturralde were confirmed as a hypervelocity impact
crater, it
would be a sensational discovery since it would represent the
scar of the
most devastating impact disaster to have happened perhaps as
recent as
5,000-10,000 years ago.
So let us contemplate what kind of object can produce a 8km wide
impact
crater. According to rough calculations, a 700m asteroid,
colliding with
Earth at 20km/sec, would be able to create a 8km impact crater.
Such an
impact would release energy equivalent to ~10.000-15.000 MT, e.g.
more than
the detonation of all of the world's nuclear weapons (~10.000
MT). A
collision of an asteroid this size is thought to occur roughly
once every
100,000 years.
If, however, the object was a comet, impacting at 70km/sec, it
would have
been ~400m in size. A comet this size could also create a 8km
impact crater.
Here the energy released would be around 15.000 MT (a collision
also thought
to occur once every 100.000 years).
It goes without saying that the implications of such results
would be
fascinating. What, then, could the implications be if a young
impact crater
were to be verified? First of all, and given the rather fresh
appearance of
the crater, there is a good chance that Paleoindians were around
when the
structure was formed. There is compelling archaeological evidence
that
people migrated from North to South America some 12.000-11,000
years ago. If
the impact occurred after Paleoindians had settled here, it would
not be
far-fetched to contemplate that people actually witnessed the
disaster in
one way or another.
As Bruce Masse (Los Alamos National Laboratory) pointed out last
week at the
London conference on Holocene Catastrophes, there is abundant
evidence for
impact-associated "myths from cultural groups in the Gran
Chaco region of
South America (Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina) and in
Brazil that
relate to a cataclysmic "great fire" of celestial
origin. The suite of
environmental information contained in these myths does not
conform to the
physical characteristics of a volcanic eruption, and instead
suggests that
during the past 12,000 years one or more catastrophic cosmic
impacts
occurred in, and severely impacted, the region defined by central
Argentina
and the Gran Chaco."
Last but not least, we may even conjecture whether such a
colossal impact
disaster with its hemispheric environmental effects may be
connected with
the late Quaternary mass extinction in South and North America
around 10,000
BP. A number of large mammals became extinct in the Americas at
the end of
the late Pleistocene. Among some 35 different kinds of animals
that
disappeared from the fossil record were mammoths, mastodons,
camels, horses,
and bears. However, current theories about the causes of the Late
Quaternary
mass extinction remain largely inconclusive and unconvincing.
But let's not get carried away. Evidently, the Iturralde
Expedition 2002
will be an extremely thrilling venture. I wish the team the best
of luck!
After all, it may have momentous repercussion about our most
recent past,
but also about our perilous cosmic environment.
Stay tuned for more on the expedition and its findings or follow
their
progress online at http://www.blueiceonline.org
Benny Peiser
================
(2) NASA SCIENTISTS DETERMINED TO UNEARTH ORIGIN OF THE ITURRALDE
CRATER
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Krishna Ramanujan
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Md. September 4, 2002
kramanuj@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov
Phone: 301/286-3026
RELEASE: 02-134
NASA SCIENTISTS DETERMINED TO UNEARTH ORIGIN OF THE ITURRALDE
CRATER
NASA scientists will venture into an isolated part of the
Bolivian Amazon to
try and uncover the origin of a 5 mile (8 kilometer) diameter
crater there
known as the Iturralde Crater. Traveling to this inhospitable
forest
setting, the Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 will seek to
determine if the
unusual circular crater was created by a meteor or comet.
Organized by Dr. Peter Wasilewski of NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center,
Greenbelt, Md., the Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 will be led
by Dr. Tim
Killeen of Conservation International, which is based in Bolivia.
Killeen will be
assisted by Dr. Compton Tucker of Goddard.
The team intends to collect and analyze rocks and soil, look for
glass
particles that develop from meteor impacts and study magnetic
properties in
the area to determine if the Iturralde site, discovered in the
mid-1980s
with satellite imagery, was indeed created by a meteor.
If a meteorite is responsible for the impression, rocks in the
area will
have shock features that do not develop under normal geological
circumstances. The team will also look for glass particles, which
develop
from the high temperatures of impact.
The Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 team will extensively
analyze soil in
the impact zone for confirmation of an impact. One unique aspect
of the
Iturralde site is the 4-5 km deep surface sediment above the
bedrock. Thus
the impact was more of a gigantic "splat" rather than a
collision into
bedrock.
The large crater is only 1 meter lower in elevation than the
surrounding
area. Water collects within the depression, but not on the rim of
the
crater, which is slightly higher than both the surrounding
landscape and the interior
of the crater. These subtle differences in drainage are reflected
in the forest
and grassland habitats that developed on the landscape. It is
precisely these differences in the vegetation structure that can
be observed
from space and which led to the identification of the Iturralde
Crater in
the 1970s when Landsat Images first became available for Bolivia.
Impact craters can also be confirmed through the magnetic study
of the
impact zone. Dr. Wasilewski's team will conduct ground
magnetometer surveys
and will examine the area through an unmanned aerial vehicle
plane fitted with a magnetometer,
an instrument for measuring the magnitude and direction of
magnetic field. The resulting data
will be analyzed by associating the magnetic readings with
geographical
coordinates, to map magnetic properties of the area. The
magnetometer data
could provide conclusive evidence as to whether or not the
Iturralde feature
is an impact crater.
The Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 expedition also contains an
education
component. Teachers from around the world who are involved with
the teacher
professional development program, called Teacher as Scientist,
have helped to design
the expedition. One teacher will actually be on-site assisting
with data collection.
University students from Bolivia will also be involved in the
expedition.
The educational element of the expedition is just as important as
the
science results," said Goddard engineer Patrick Coronado.
"This is one of
those experiments that stirs the imagination, where science and
technology
come head-to-head with nature in an attempt to unlock its
secrets."
More information on ICE2002 can be found on:
http://www.blueiceonline.org
For more information, please see:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020904icecrater.html
===========
(3) INTRODUCTION
http://www.blueiceonline.org/blueweb/ice_2002.pdf
AUGUST 17, 2002
Peter Wasilewski- NASA/GSFC u1pjw@lepvax.gsfc.nasa.gov
301-286-8317 phone
Impact craters can be found decorating the surface of solid
bodies in the
Solar System. On earth they are found on all the continents,
however
tectonics and fluvial and aeolian processes tend to mask the
evidence of
impact rendering the discovery and verification of the impact
site akin to a
detective story. The effects of impact are now recognized to be
important to
the interpretation of the biological and geological history of
the Earth,
consequently the circular feature called the Iturralde structure
is an
obvious subject of scientific interest. Located in the Bolivian
Amazon, the
Iturralde structure shows strong circumstantial evidence for
being a crater.
It will fall to ICE 2002 to verify that it is a crater. ICE 2002
will visit
the site and sample the soil for later analysis, evaluate the
flora within
and outside the "crater", look for evidence of exotic
fragments including a
search for glassy particles and magnetic particles. We will use
ground based
and MAGPLANE surveys to look for a magnetic signature associated
with the 8
kilometer circular structure.
Bolivia Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 (ICE2002) is a NASA
Goddard Space
Flight Center expedition with the main funding source being the
NASA/GSFC
Directors Discretionary Fund (DDF) for Education. Consequently
this
expedition from the onset is a science/education event. Thus the
teacher
professional development program called Teacher as Scientist
(TAS) is an
important element in the design of the expedition. Additional
funding comes
from NASA MU-SPIN and code 713 at the NASA/GSFC. The MAGPLANE
funding is due
to NASA/GSFC code 935 with additional support from
NASA Wallops. The MAGPLANE magnetometers are due to the
magnetometer team
(NASA/GSFC code 695) led by Dr. Mario Acuna.
A memorandum of understanding exists between NASA headquarters
and the Museo
Noel Kempff in Santa Cruz Bolivia. The expedition would not be
possible
without the supervision and assistance of the men in Bolivia- Dr.
Tim
Killeen from Museo Noel Kempff Mercado and Conservation
International and
Teddy M. Siles Lazzo from Museo de Historia Natural "Noel
Kempff Mercado".
Any web site information and all data from the expedition will be
located at
http://www.blueiceonline.com
==============
(4) BACKGROUND: THE 1998 EXPEDITION
>From Blue Ice Online
http://www.blueiceonline.org/blueweb/icebackground.html
In perhaps the remotest and wildest part of the Bolivian
lowlands, in an
area hundreds of kilometers from the closest town, NASA
scientists have
identified what they believe to be the youngest complex meteorite
impact
crater on earth. Based on what is known about the geology of the
region,
they believe the meteorite slammed into the Earth sometime
between 5,000 and
20,000 years ago, making it the youngest "large" impact
crater on Earth. The
crater is approximately 8 km across and is unique in that the
target
material was soft sediment
The crater was originally identified in the mid-1980s with
satellite
imagery, but a previous attempt to visit the site in 1987 was
unsuccessful
due to the remoteness of the locality. However, Campbell et al
(1989) were
able to make an excellent circumstantial case for an
impact origin for the Iturralde structure based on the following
observations:
o The structure is unique to the area and indeed may be unique to
the Amazon
basin which is devoid of geologic expression other than that of
surficial
Quaternary sedimentation and fluvial erosive activity
o The structure is superimposed upon the local topography
o The depth to basement is estimated to be 3 kilometers and
together with
tens of meters of loose Pleistocene alluvium within which the
structure lies
makes it very unlikely that the structure reflects any basement
expression.
o The structure is > 500 Kilometers from the nearest known
volcanic or karst
terrain within which circular features are sometimes found
o The general form of the structure- elevated rim, annular
trough, and
central uplift- is that of a complex impact structure
The above were derived mostly from the interpretation of a
Landsat image
In October 1998 the expedition reached the crater impact site
after
traveling by jet airliner, small airplane, motor boat, dugout
canoe, and
finally by cutting a 15 km long trail through the forest. Field
data
gathered during the expedition supports the hypothesis that the
circular
feature is a meteorite impact crater. The rings visible on the
satellite
image correspond to slight ridges not more than 2 m in elevation,
but
sufficiently higher to support upland forest vegetation, while
the interior
of the crater is either inundated savanna or flooded forest.
However, only
sophisticated methods using seismology and magnetometry can
definitively
prove the existence of a meteorite or meteorite fragments buried
beneath
hundreds of meters of alluvial deposits.
=========
(5) THE ARAONA: WHO ARE THEY?
http://www.blueiceonline.org/
The Araona currently live in a territorial area between the
rivers Manupare
and Manurimi, delimited approximately by the parallels 12º and
13º South
latitude and by the meridians 68º and 67º West longitude The
Araona
population in 1999 was 93 persons, with a majority of the male
sex The
Araona live in a settlement (Puerto Araona) located in the
Department of La
Paz, Province of Iturralde, at the headwaters of the river
Manupare.
Their houses are constructed approximately 15 minutes distant
from each
other. This makes the settlement quite disperse, with families
separated in
the forest. The tradition of constructing housing separated by
the jungle,
could have its origin in the character of peacefulness in which
the Araona
are accustomed to living. One can observe four types of
buildings. The first
is the permanent house, where the family spends most of its time;
another is
the occasional construction of shelters for hunting and fishing
in places
that offer the possibility of finding meat; another curious house
made by
the Araona is the "nahuiletae" a small shelter
designated for women. Finally
there is the "babatae" or temple for the Araona gods
that is constructed
with great care using special materials such as the jatata leaf.
The
territory possesses abundant rivers and curichis that offer the
Araona
points of reference for the supply of food.. Given that the
habitat is
located in remote forests the Araona have very infrequent contact
by land
with the regional population. The only method of linking and
contact with
the non-indigenous population is through the river Manupare, to
the Madre de
Dios, on which one finally arrives at Riberalta, the largest
population
center of the Northern Amazon of Bolivia.
The first reference of the Araona -through contact with the
Araona who at
the time lived along the river Madre de Dios - was made by
Fransiscan
Missionaries Manuel Mancini and Fidel Codenach in January 1867
Due in part
to the fact that the visit was carried out at the start of the
conquest of
the North, the Franciscans did not start a mission in the
community, a
decision determined by the difficulties and risks that conditions
presented.
At the start of the conquest of Northern Bolivia, rooted in the
discovery of
rubber in the jungles of the National Colony Territory, the
Araona made up
the most extensive indigenous group in the region. Information
offered by
the industrialist Antonio Vaca Déz in "Historia de la
Colonización del Río
Orthon" (1888) recognized that this indigenous peoples
(Araona) populated
the majority of the Bolivian rivers of the northeast. Chronicles
of
travelers of that time agree in showing that the Araona were
located in
distinct parts of the region. Some rubber industrialists, -such
as Vaca Díez
- initiated friendships offering them gifts of tools and other
useful
objects. In return, the Araona gave them news about the existence
of the
rivers where rich areas of rubber were located. During the era of
rubber
exploitation, the Araona and other indigenous groups were taken
from their
villages and forced to work as man power. There they were used as
guides for
the teams of rumbeares to find rubber trees, as well as to hunt
and fish for
the "white" workers.
The current Araona survivors come from the families that managed
to escape
their captors, that held them in conditions of slavery. Since
that time,
approximately in the year 1910 until 1964, the Araona lived as
nomads,
hiding themselves from the rubber workers in the territory
between the
rivers Madre de Dios and Manupare.
Members of the Linguistic Institute of Verano and the New Tribes
Mission,
achieved friendly contact with 31 Araona that were found on the
river
Amarillo (Jahamanu), afraid of the white people and maintaining a
nomadic
lifestyle. In 1964 these institutions grouped themselves around a
population
center on the bank of the Manupare, with the intent of
evangelization.
The information contained in this piece was obtained from the
VAIPO website.
The information was edited and modified considerably for this
site.
The VAIPO
website: http://www.rds.org.bo/macpio/pios/pios/araona/araonaframeset.htm
A Spanish version can be reached from the main page.
===========
(6) THE HUMAN DIMENSIONS OF COSMIC IMPACT: ANALYSIS OF SOUTH
AMERICA'S MYTHS
OF THE "GREAT FIRE"
W. Bruce Masse
Los Alamos National Laboratory
http://atlas-conferences.com/cgi-bin/abstract/caiq-36
Physical scientists, policy makers, and the general public are
becoming
increasingly aware that the Earth is periodically subject to
impacts by
asteroids, comets, and small meteorites. It is now generally
accepted that
cosmic impacts played a significant role in climate change and
biological evolution in the distant geological past. However, the
current
view by science is that major regional and globally catastrophic
impacts
have not occurred during the past 20,000 years, and that such
impacts, while
possible, are unlikely to occur during the next several thousand
years. Few
archaeologists, anthropologists, and paleoenvironmental
specialists have
included consideration of cosmic impacts in their analysis of the
physical
record of humankind. Major natural catastrophes (e.g.,
"universal" floods,
fire, darkness, and cold) are prominently reflected in
traditional South
American creation myths, cosmology, religion, and worldview. The
present
study examines myths from cultural groups in the Gran Chaco
region of South
America (Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina) and in Brazil
that relate to
a cataclysmic "great fire" of celestial origin. The
suite of environmental
information contained in these myths does not conform to the
physical
characteristics of a volcanic eruption, and instead suggests that
during the
past 12,000 years one or more catastrophic cosmic impacts
occurred in, and
severely impacted, the region defined by central Argentina and
the Gran
Chaco. These data are weighed against our present understanding
of the
presumed Holocene period Campo del Cielo and Rio Cuarto impacts
in northern
Argentina. The combined data imply that our current analytical
methods and
theoretical paradigms have limited our ability to recognize and
understand
the historic record of cosmic impact. The physical and cultural
record of
humankind provides a largely untapped database that can help
refine
astrophysical, geological, and environmental models concerning
the risk and
effects of cosmic impact and other major natural catastrophes.
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