PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 106/2001 - 11 October 2001
================================
"Here's our dilemma: All archaeologists agree that around
the end of
the 13th century B.C.E., the great Bronze Age civilizations of
the
Aegean and eastern Mediterranean collapsed within 50 to 100 years
of
one another. But, alas, there is no consensus as to what actually
brought about this devastation. Whatever the cause, one of the
most
glittering eras in human history came to an end."
--William H. Stiebing, Jr., Archaeology Odyssey,
September/October 2001
"The aim of the Spaceguard project is to have enough
telescopes to
give us 30 or 40 years' warning of any impending collision, and
you
could do plenty in that time. When people tell me there's nothing
we could
do, I point out that it took the Americans less than 10 years
from a
standing start to landing on the moon. This is a problem we can
fix."
--Jay Tate, The Spaceguard Centre, The Daily Post, 10
October 2001
"University of Arkansas researchers are seeking a few good
asteroids
for a space mission, and they need information about these
planetary
bodies from scientists who study them to determine which ones
make
the best-suited candidates for the study. "With improved
technology,
we are swamped with the discovery of near-Earth asteroids,"
said Derek
Sears, director of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and
Planetary
Sciences. "What we need now is some ground-based data to
help select
possible asteroids for this mission." The mission, dubbed
Hera after
the mother of the Three Graces, would send a spacecraft to three
near-Earth asteroids, collect material from them and return it to
Earth for
research purposes. The researchers plan to propose the mission to
NASA within the next 12 months."
--UniSci, 10 October 2001
(1) GUARDIAN OF THE SKIES
The Daily Post, 10 October 2001
(2) ASTEROIDS NAMED IN MEMORY OF SEPT. 11 TERRORISM VICTIMS
Space.com, 10 October 2001
(3) ARKANSAS RESEARCHERS LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD ASTEROIDS
UniSci, 10 October 2001
(4) LEONID METEORS LIKELY TO STORM THIS NOVEMBER
Space Daily, 10 October 2001
(5) WHEN CIVILIZATION COLLAPSED: DEATH OF THE BRONZE AGE
Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2001
(6) EDINBURGH BLASTS OFF ON A JOURNEY INTO SPACE
Electronic Herald, 9 October 2001
(7) ANCIENT, GIGANTIC DRAINAGE BASIN BECAME AQUIFER ON MARS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(8) RAS MEETING ON EARTH'S SPACE ENVIRONMENT
Peter R Bond <100604.1111@compuserve.com>
(9) ASTEROIDS IN HONOUR OF TERRORISM VICTIMS
Javier Andres Licandro Goldaracena <jlicandr@ll.iac.es>
=================
(1) GUARDIAN OF THE SKIES
>From The Daily Post, 10 October 2001
Scientists share a real fear that an asteroid will hit earth and
wipe out
most forms of life. Ian Piarri spoke to one man who is dedicating
his life
to saving the planet
As communter make their way across the Dee at Flintshire Bridge,
traffic
screeches to a halt as drivers are dazzled by a stunningly bright
light in
the sky.
Passengers scream with horror as their train is de-railed on
approaching
Chester, the tracks on the North Wales Coast line having buckled
in the
intense heat. Their terror is fortunately short lived as they are
vaporised
in seconds as are most people on Merseyside and across much of
North and
Mid-Wales.
Some, miraculously, make it alive out of the collapsed Mersey
tunnels and
Liverpool's underground railway system, and the furthermost
reaches of the
Llyn Peninsula escape the worst of the massive blast. But clouds
of dust
block out the sunlight (sic) and plunge all of the UK into Arctic
conditions
(sic).
A scenario for yet another disaster movie, you might think, and
it certainly
is that. But it is also a realistic assessment of what would
happen, were an
asteroid just 50 metres wide to land in our midst, hardly a giant
among the
thousands of chunks of rock which hurtle around space in what, in
astronomical terms, equates to close proximity to the Earth.
Indeed, such an object did crash to Earth as recently as 1908,
flattening
many hundreds of square miles of forestry in the vicinity of
Tunguska in
central Siberia with a force equivalent to 2,000 times that of
the atomic
bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. And, while the
statisticians predict
that similarly sized objects should force their way through the
protective
shield of the Earth's atmosphere only once every 100 to 300
years, it happened again some
40 years later, again in Siberia.
A much bigger asteroid, probably several kilometres wide, is
though to have
caused the extinction of the dinosaurs as it struck near where
the Gulf of
Mexico stands today, some 65m years ago. Scientists genuinely
fear that
another similar collision, which is a statistical certainty
whether it
happens in 40 years or 40m years, would wipe out all advanced
life forms.
Perched precariously in their red-brick observatory that stands
atop a windy
Welsh hill overlooking the tiny town of Knighton, in Powys, Jay
and Anne
Tate keep a constant watch on the skies as part of an
international vigil to
spot any errant asteroids or comets on course for collision with
Mother
Earth.
A former Major in the Army, Jay Tate left the military little
more than two
months ago in order to concentrate his energies on the Spaceguard
UK
lobbying group he established in 1997. At the end of July he, his
wife and
their two children moved into the former Powys County
'Observatory. It is
packed sardine-tight with the latest telescopes, seismographs and
computer
technology, together with more visitor-friendly attractions such
as a camera
obscura and stunning planetarium.
Now re-named the Spaceguard Centre, and officially opened just
last week by
eminent astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, the observatory is a
self-financing
private venture which depends on paying visitors in order to
balance the
books. The Tates put up with cramped living quarters on-site,
with the
family's piano and open-plan kitchen sharing the same floor space
as some of
the centre's hi-tech computer equipment, as they pursue their
dream of
making Knighton the epicentre of the search for hazardous Near
Earth Objects
(NEOs).
And Jay Tate, a man brimming with the self-confidence instilled
in him by 26
years in the armed forces, insists it has a leading role to play
in the
international effort to stave off the ultimate disaster that
threatens from
Outer Space.
"We first took interest in this field after watching the
Shoemaker-Levy 9
comet hitting Jupiter in 1994 as we were holidaying in the US,
and I thought
it would be quite interesting to find out what was in place to
stop it
happening here," he says. "In the full and certain
knowledge that we'd have
the threat licked, I spent a year trying to find out. But there
was nothing
there, so we decided do something about it."
Back in 1996, he submitted proposals to the Ministry of Defence
and the
Department of Trade and Industry about the establishment of a
Spaceguard
centre to supplement the few efforts being made worldwide,
primarily by the
US.
Although merely an enthusiastic amateur at the time, just like
the highly
respected Sir Patrick Moore, he had the backing of scientists
renowned in
the field worldwide, including Dr Arthur C. Clarke, Dr Gene
Shoemaker, Prof
Edward Teller and Dr Benny Peiser, an expert on asteroid impacts
based at
Liverpool John Moores University.
The proposals were dismissed out of hand, but three years later a
government
task force was set up to report into NEOs. Among the
recommendations in
their report, published more than a year ago, was to set up a
centre that
would correlate and co-ordinate research work into the risk posed
by NEOs,
and to disseminate information about them.
The government has set aside an initial £250,000 to set up and
run such a
centre, and an announcement as to who runs it is expected in the
coming
weeks. Jay Tate is still hopeful that Spaceguard UK's bid -
backed by many
of the great and the good in the world of astronomy - to base it
in Knighton
proves successful.
Whether it is or not, he is, however, thankful that the
politicians are at
last taking seriously a threat which has the potential wipe out
mankind.
"They used not to take it seriously:, but now they have no
option. The
science is there whereby we can prove that there is a measurable
hazard, a
greater hazard than others on which we spend a lot of money to
sort out.
"The risk of being killed due to an asteroid hitting the
Earth is about the
same as being killed when you step aboard an airliner. It's
significant
enough to warrant having something done about it, but not enough
to lie
awake at night worrying."
Montgomery's Liberal Democrat MP, Lembit Opik, the party's leader
in Wales,
was the first British politician to raise his head above the
parapet and
risk ridicule by expressing his fears about Near Earth Objects.
"Until I raised the matter in a debate in the House of
Commons three years
ago, the Government took it as a joke that was a matter more for
Hollywood
than Whitehall," he says. "But I stuck to my guns as
people were ridiculing
the whole project, and during the campaign we have raised the
debate from
the realms of science-fiction to science-fact. We see the
£250,000 that's on
the table as the springboard to a bigger investment, and I
believe that
there's a good chance that it comes to Powys."
Dr Benny Peiser feels that it is imperative that the UK and
Europe in
general starts contributing towards the search for NEOs, w1th the
USA at
present doing 90pc of what little work is done at present. Fewer
than a
hundred people worldwide are believed to be actively involved in
the search.
With John Moores University backing Spaceguard UK's Knighton bid,
Dr Peiser
sees the University's role as being a regional information
centre. And he
fully expects their Birkenhead-based subsidiary, Telescope
Technologies Ltd,
to take a leading role in building the £70m (sic) giant
Telescope envisaged
in the taskforce's report as one of the UK's future
contributions.
"There is clearly an obligation for the UK, with European
support, to start
contributing," he says. "While the likihood of any NEO
actually hitting a
city is extremely remote, seeing that much of the world is
covered in water
and a lot of land is uninhabited, the effect of even a 50m one
would be
catastrophic.
"A much bigger one would be like a million nuclear bombs
going off together,
and could lead to mass extinctions. It is crucial that we find
them before
they find us."
Jay Tate foresees that present-day technology would allow mankind
to save
itself by using nuclear weapons to deflect asteroids and comets
from their
orbits, were they heading straight for Earth.
Nasa successfully landing its NEAR-Shoemaker space probe on an
asteroid
called Eros, in February this year, clearly shows that the
technical
capability to reach NEOs exist.
Huge asteroids might nonetheless prove too bulky to be deflected
even by the
mightiest nuclear explosion, but scientists remain hopeful that
technical
advances in coming years will address this problem.
"The aim of the Spaceguard project is to have enough
telescopes to give us
30 or 40 years' warning of any impending collision, and you could
do plenty
in that time," he says.
"When people tell me there's nothing we could do, I point
out that it took
the Americans less than 10 years from a standing start to landing
on the
moon. This is a problem we can fix."
Copyright 2001, The Daily Post
============
(2) ASTEROIDS NAMED IN MEMORY OF SEPT. 11 TERRORISM VICTIMS
>From Space.com, 10 October 2001
http://www.space.com/news/asteroid_setp11_011010.html
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
An international group responsible for cataloguing space rocks
has named
three asteroids to honor victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks that
destroyed the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and damaged the
Pentagon. The
names were chosen "to represent some of the most basic and
universal human
values," officials said.
The names are Compassion, Solidarity and Magnanimity.
The decision to name the asteroids was made unilaterally in a
unanimous
agreement among the 13 members of the International Astronomical
Union's
Committee for Small Body Nomenclature.
"The sentiments reflect the feelings of all the members of
the committee,
representing many different countries," said Brian Marsden,
an asteroid
researcher and secretary for the group. The action taken by the
committee is
unprecedented.
The three asteroids were each discovered by observatories on
different
continents and "are intended as a positive statement
abhorring the tragedy
that occurred on a fourth," according to a monthly
newsletter from the IAU.
Details of the newly named asteroids:
Compassion, also known as asteroid 1980 DN, was discovered Feb.
19, 1980 at
the Klet Observatory. It was named "to honor the compassion
of people around
the world for the friends and families of the victims of
disasters,
exemplified by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington
on 2001
Sept. 11, with the hope that they will overcome their
sorrow."
Solidarity, also known as asteroid 1980 PV1, was discovered on
Aug. 6, 1980
at the European Southern Observatory. It was named to honor the
solidarity
of people around the world with both victims and survivors of
terrorist
attacks like those on New York and Washington on 2001 Sept. 11,
in the goal
of eliminating terrorism from the world."
Magnanimity, also known as asteroid 1980 TE7, was discovered on
Oct. 14,
1980 at the Purple Mountain Observatory. It was named "to
honor the
magnanimity of people around the world in dealing with terrorist
attacks
like those on New York and Washington on 2001 Sept. 11, in the
hope that
terrorism will be countered with justice for all, not with
revenge."
Magnanimity means generosity and forgiveness.
The 13 members of the naming committee are volunteers from the
United
States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Norway, the
Czech
Republic, Uruguay and New Zealand.
In a telephone interview, Marsden said the group took great care
to find
three asteroids that had been discovered and numbered
consecutively and that
were found by researchers outside the United States.
Committee member Richard West of the European Southern
Observatory proposed
the idea on Sept. 14, just three days after the attacks. West
also proposed
the names, which the committee agreed to. The accompanying
defenses for the
names, citations that are required to get an asteroid named, were
written
originally by West and edited by the committee, Marsden said.
West is also a discoverer of the asteroid now called Solidarity.
Marsden
said an effort was made to choose asteroids that had been
discovered by
members of the naming committee in order to simplify matters:
Astronomers
commonly suggest names for asteroids they have found.
The names became official on Oct. 2 but were made known widely
only when
posted Oct. 9 on the Minor Planet Mailing List, an electronic
newsletter
that serves the science community.
The plan to name the asteroids was reported by SPACE.com Sept.
21.
Benny Peiser, a scientist at Liverpool John Moores University in
the UK,
called the move a very symbolic sign of both the humanism and
internationalism of his community of asteroid researchers.
"I think this is a very timely and appropriate action,"
Peiser said. "Any
other suggestion might turn out not to be workable and would have
taken much
longer to implement."
Peiser referred, in part, to suggestions by some amateur and
professional
astronomers to name an asteroid for each of the roughly 5,000
victims of the
Sept. 11 attacks.
The IAU deemed that idea impractical.
For one thing, it would put a tremendous burden on the 13
volunteers who
make up the judging committee and would have to study each
application,
Marsden said. They typically name just 100 asteroids a month.
Second, he said uncertainties on the list would make it very
difficult to be
sure each victim in fact was properly awarded an asteroid and
that no
asteroids were mistakenly named after terrorists or others who
were possibly
missing but not dead. Officials involved in counting victims have
said the
list is not entirely accurate, and it has changed frequently as
more
information is gathered.
As of late September there were 29,074 known "minor
planets," mostly
asteroids and a handful of comets and other objects. Of those,
only 8,830
were named.
Asteroids, most of which orbit the Sun in a wide swath of space
between the
orbits of Mars and Jupiter, have been named for rock stars,
classical
musicians, politicians and even cities and countries.
Copyright 2001, Space.com
=============
(3) ARKANSAS RESEARCHERS LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD ASTEROIDS
>From UniSci, 10 October 2001
http://unisci.com/stories/20014/1010013.htm
University of Arkansas researchers are seeking a few good
asteroids for a
space mission, and they need information about these planetary
bodies from
scientists who study them to determine which ones make the
best-suited
candidates for the study.
"With improved technology, we are swamped with the discovery
of near-Earth
asteroids," said Derek Sears, director of the
Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for
Space and Planetary Sciences. "What we need now is some
ground-based data to
help select possible asteroids for this mission."
The mission, dubbed Hera after the mother of the Three Graces,
would send a
spacecraft to three near-Earth asteroids, collect material from
them and
return it to Earth for research purposes. The researchers plan to
propose
the mission to NASA within the next 12 months.
Leon Gefert of NASA's Glenn Research Center has calculated about
60 possible
trajectories for the mission, where the spacecraft would follow a
path to
collect samples from the three asteroids and then return to
Earth.
>From this data, Sears and his colleagues have created a
"hot list" of
asteroids that appear more than once in these trajectories, and
now they are
seeking information about them.
The researchers need spectral information to determine which trio
of
asteroids might prove most scientifically interesting, and
information about
the asteroids' orbits around the sun to determine the most
efficient travel
path to keep fuel expenditures low.
Other information essential to the mission includes the
asteroid's size,
shape and rotation state. This will help determine where the
spacecraft
might land on the asteroid and how it would obtain sample
material, Sears
said.
The researchers are also combing international databases
containing
information about known near-Earth asteroids for information
pertinent to
their mission.
Sears presented his request for information at a recent meeting
of the
Meteoritical Society in Rome. - By Melissa Blouin
Related website:
"Hot List" and more information on project
[Contact: Derek Sears, Melissa Blouin]
Copyright © 1995-2001 UniSci. All rights reserved.
===========
(4) LEONID METEORS LIKELY TO STORM THIS NOVEMBER
>From Space Daily, 10 October 2001
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/leonid-01a.html
by Roger W. Sinnott
Sky & Telescope
Cambridge MA - Oct 1, 2001
If predictions by the world's top meteor experts hold up, early
on the
morning of November 18th skywatchers in North America can expect
to see
their most dramatic meteor shower in 35 years. These meteors,
called Leonids
because they appear to radiate from the constellation Leo (the
Lion), will
signal the collision of Earth with streams of fast-moving dust
particles
shed by Comet Tempel-Tuttle.
In the November 2001 Sky & Telescope -- the magazine's
60th-anniversary
issue -- meteorologist Joe Rao assesses the predictions provided
by three
teams of specialists. Rao concludes that two dramatic displays
called
"meteor storms" appear likely.
A burst lasting perhaps two hours is expected in the predawn
hours of
November 18th for observers throughout most of North and Central
America.
The maximum rates should occur at 5:00 a.m. EST (corresponding to
4:00 a.m.
CST, 3:00 a.m. MST, 2:00 a.m. PST). With no moonlight spoiling
the view, the
storm may briefly generate anywhere from several hundred to 1,000
or 2,000
meteors per hour for observers with clear, dark skies.
An even bigger storm arrives 8 hours later for viewers rimming
the
far-western Pacific Ocean. Because these locations are on the
other side of
the International Date Line, this peak occurs before dawn on
November 19th.
Several thousand meteors may streak across the sky for an hour or
so
starting at 3:30 or 4:30 a.m. in eastern Australia (depending on
location);
2:30 a.m. in Japan; and 1:30 a.m. in western Australia, the
Philippines, and
eastern China.
Meteors create momentary "shooting stars" when flecks
of interplanetary dust
strike Earth's atmosphere at high speed. The Leonids, which are
one of a
dozen or so annual meteor showers caused by cometary dust, arrive
at a
blistering 44 miles (71 kilometers) per second -- the fastest
known.
Typically showers produce one meteor every few minutes, though
often there
are bursts and lulls. Two years ago the Leonids briefly peppered
the skies
over Europe and the Middle East with up to 2,500 meteors per
hour. In 1966
lucky observers in the southwestern United States gaped in awe
for 20
minutes as Leonid meteors fell at the rate of 40 per second!
More about the prospects for a Leonid storm appears in the
November issue of
SKY & TELESCOPE. This issue marks the diamond anniversary of
the monthly
magazine for amateur astronomers launched by Charles and Helen
Federer in
November 1941. The Federers took on the challenge of merging THE
SKY (which
had been published by New York's Hayden Planetarium) and THE
TELESCOPE (then
published by Harvard College Observatory). Today the magazine is
enjoyed by
some 250,000 skywatchers worldwide.
Roger W. Sinnott is Senior Editor for Sky & Telescope
Copyright 2001, SpaceDaily
==============
(5) WHEN CIVILIZATION COLLAPSED: DEATH OF THE BRONZE AGE
>From Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2001
http://www.bib-arch.org/aoso01/civilization1.html
By William H. Stiebing, Jr.
It was a cataclysm of immense proportions: Near the end of the
13th century
B.C.E., the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Near
East
suddenly collapsed.
In the latter part of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400-1200 B.C.E.),
Mycenaean
civilization flourished in Greece and Crete. The Hittites
controlled most of
Anatolia and northern Syria from their capital at Hattusa (modern
Bogazköy,
about 125 miles east of Ankara). The Egyptian New Kingdom ruled
not only in
the Nile Valley but also in Palestine and southern Syria.
Commerce flowed
over trade routes that crisscrossed both land and sea. A
late-14th-century
B.C.E. ship excavated off the Uluburun promontory in southern
Turkey, for
example, carried cargo from Cyprus, Canaan, Egypt, Anatolia and
Mycenaean
Greece.
A century later, all these civilizations had begun to unravel.
Cities
burned, trade became almost nonexistent, and large groups of
people migrated
from one place to another.
When calm returned, a new world had dawned. In the wake of the
magnificent
Late Bronze Age civilizations, new peoples eventually arose,
including the
classical Greeks and biblical Israelites-two of the most
significant
precursors of modern Western civilization.
Mycenae and the Mycenaeans
Around 1500 B.C.E., Mycenaeans from the Greek Peloponnesus
invaded Crete,
destroyed the Minoan palaces, and took control of the island. For
the next
three centuries, the Mycenaeans were the dominant power in the
Aegean. They
ruled Crete from Knossos into the 13th century B.C.E.(1) and set
up
settlements on the island of Rhodes and at Miletus in Anatolia.
Signs of the disaster to come first appeared in the 13th century
B.C.E.
Although Mycenaean products such as perfumed oils and unguents
continued to
be in great demand throughout the eastern Mediterranean, matters
were not so
peaceful at home. By the mid-13th century B.C.E., the rulers of
Mycenae,
Athens, Gla and Tiryns found it necessary to strengthen their
fortification
walls, and the palace at Thebes in Boeotia was burned. The palace
at Knossos
in Crete, taken over from the Minoans, may have been destroyed
about the
same time.
Then came the widespread disasters of the early 12th century
B.C.E.(2)
Around 1200 B.C.E. Pylos was destroyed and Thebes was burned
again, along
with Gla, Iolkos, Midea, Tiryns and the Menelaion (a site near
Sparta
associated with the Homeric king Menelaus, the younger brother of
the
Mycenaean king Agamemnon and the husband of Helen). Portions of
Mycenae were
burned (possibly twice) in the early 12th century B.C.E., but
this great
citadel survived the fires. Then, around 1150 B.C.E., Mycenae,
Tiryns and
the nearby sites of Asine and Iria were razed. Many sites in
Greece were
simply abandoned, with refugees settling as far off as Cyprus.
The
population of Greece seems to have declined by about 75 percent.
The
literate, highly centralized Mycenaean kingdoms with their
elaborate
bureaucracies disappeared-and small, poor agricultural villages
took their
place.(3)
Similarly, Crete seems to have suffered a major decline in
population.
People abandoned the coastal areas and built new villages in the
hills or in
other easily defensible positions.(4) Without the palace
bureaucracies to
maintain it, knowledge of writing was lost both here as well as
in Greece.**
A "Dark Age" descended over the entire Aegean region.
Hattusa and the Hittites
Texts surviving from the reign of the last Hittite king,
Suppiluliuma II (c.
1200-1180), refer to general discontent among the Hittite people.
The
population's displeasure may well have been due to food
shortages. Not long
before the destruction of Canaanite Ugarit around 1185 B.C.E.,
the city's
king received three letters mentioning famine in the Hittite
Empire. One
demanded that Ugarit furnish a ship to transport 2,000 measures
of grain to
Cilicia, in southern Anatolia. It is, the letter says, a matter
of life or
death!(5)
With the Hittite Empire severely weakened, Hittite vassals in
western
Anatolia and elsewhere rebelled. Egyptian annals record that the
so-called
Sea Peoples (see Invasions of the Sea Peoples) were marauding in
Anatolia at
this time. The Hittites raised an army and navy from their
citizens and
their loyal vassals and deployed them to meet these threats.
However, this
left the Hittites' loyal allies like Alashiya (Cyprus) and Ugarit
defenseless. The king of Alashiya appealed to the last king of
Ugarit,
Ammurapi, for help in defending the island. Ammurapi regrets that
he is
unable to help:
My father behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?)
were
burned, and they did evil things in my country [Ugarit]. Does not
my
father know that all my troops and chariots (?) are in the
Hittite
country, and all my ships are in the land of Lycia [Lukka]? ...
Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it:
the seven
ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon
us.(6)
Hittite and Ugaritic records then become silent, so we do not
know what
happened to the Hittite forces to which King Ammurapi had
committed troops
and ships. It is likely that the Hittite forces were defeated,
for a wave of
destruction swept over the Hittite Empire. Hattusa was violently
sacked and
burned-as was Troy, Miletus, Alaca Hüyük, Alisar, Tarsus,
Alalakh, Ugarit,
Qatna, Qadesh and numerous other cities either ruled by the
Hittites or
associated with the empire.
The Hittite Empire was gone, but Hittite culture did not
disappear. In Syria
during the 12th century B.C.E., several small kingdoms arose
whose rulers
bore Hittite royal names and whose religious, artistic and
epigraphic
traditions derived from the Hittite Empire. The Assyrians called
these
kingdoms "Hatti," the old name for the Hittite Empire.
However, the language
of these "Neo-Hittites" was not the Hittite of the
former rulers of Hattusa.
It was a dialect of Luwian, a related Indo-European language that
had been
spoken by groups in western and southern Anatolia during the
Bronze Age.
Peoples from Cilicia or western Anatolia, it seems, migrated to
Syria during
the upheavals of the early 12th century B.C.E. and filled in the
vacuum left
by the withdrawal of the once-great Hittite Empire.
Egypt and the New Kingdom
Although many Egyptian vassal states in Syria and Palestine were
destroyed,
Egypt itself weathered the 12th-century B.C.E. tumult better than
the rest
of the eastern Mediterranean. Egypt also prevented groups of
Libyans and Sea
Peoples from occupying the Nile Delta. But not even Egypt could
maintain her
former grandeur in the face of widespread calamities.
>From the time of Ramesses III (c. 1182-1151 B.C.E.) through
that of Ramesses
VII (c. 1133-1127 B.C.E.), the price of emmer wheat in Egypt
gradually rose
to eight (or, for a time, 24) times its earlier price. Not until
the reign
of Ramesses X (c. 1108-1098 B.C.E.) did the price drop, but even
then it
remained twice what it had been at the beginning of the 12th
century. During
this period, the government also sometimes failed to pay grain
and other
food rations owed to artisans who cut and decorated the royal
tombs. The
craftsmen staged strikes at least six times between about 1154
B.C.E. and
1106 B.C.E. because their grain allotments were months in
arrears.
Corruption among public officials was rampant. Royal tombs were
robbed,
often by the very craftsmen who had worked on them. During the
reign of
Ramesses IX (c. 1126-1108 B.C.E.), eight tomb robbers were caught
and forced
to confess. It is interesting that the thieves most often
confessed to
purchasing food with their loot.
Several times during the latter half of the 12th century B.C.E.,
marauding
groups of Egyptians and Libyan mercenaries terrorized the area
around
Thebes, looting and killing. On one occasion they destroyed an
entire town.
Anarchy broke out in Thebes, and looters stripped the gold and
copper from
the walls, doors and statues of the city's temples. By the time
Ramesses XI
died in 1070 B.C.E., Egypt was being ruled by an army commander
of Libyan
descent. The New Kingdom (1550-1070 B.C.E.), the last of the
great Egyptian
dynasties, was now defunct.
Assyria and Babylonia
During the late 14th and early 13th centuries B.C.E., Assyria had
grown into
a major power. Asshur-Uballit I (c. 1353-1313) established
Assyria's
independence from Kassite Babylonia, claimed the status of
"Great King" and
initiated correspondence with Egypt. The kings Adad-Nirari I (c.
1295-1264)
and Shalmaneser I (c. 1263-1234) extended Assyrian power into
eastern Syria.
Shalmaneser's successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I (c. 1233-1197),
wrested territory
from the Hittites in the north and then campaigned in the south,
conquering
Babylon and making it an Assyrian vassal. When he died, Assyria
controlled
all of Mesopotamia, including the portion of Syria east of the
Euphrates
River.
Tukulti-Ninurta was then murdered by one of his sons, and the
Assyrian
Empire went into decline. Babylon reestablished its independence
and Assyria
seems to have lost much of her Syrian territory. Tiglath-Pileser
I (c.
1115-1077 B.C.E.) arrested the decline for a time, but most of
his campaigns
seem to have been essentially defensive. An Assyrian letter from
this time
complains about "rains which have been so scanty this year
that no harvests
were reaped."(7) An Assyrian chronicle records that "a
famine (so severe)
occurred (that) [peop]le ate one another's flesh."(8)
By the end of the 11th century B.C.E., Assyrian rulers controlled
only a
small territory in northeastern Mesopotamia. Drought, famine and
hunger are
mentioned at least 14 times in texts dating between the 11th and
the first
half of the tenth century B.C.E. At the end of the 11th century,
the
situation was so bad that food and drink offerings for many of
the gods had
to be canceled. Considering the importance that ancient Near
Eastern peoples
placed on maintaining the rites of their gods, especially when
divine help
was needed, this could only have been prompted by an extreme
emergency.
Rival Babylon was unable to take advantage of Assyrian weakness.
Elam, the
kingdom just to the east, began sending her armies into
Babylonia,
destroying Babylonian towns. In one invasion, the Elamites sacked
Babylon
and carried Hammurabi's law stela off to Susa, capital of Elam,
where French
archaeologists found it in the mid-19th century C.E.
Mesopotamia's political chaos was accompanied by-and perhaps
caused
by-severe food shortages. For instance, the normal price of
barley in
Mesopotamia had been about one silver shekel for 30 seahs
(approximately two
bushels). An inscription from the mid-tenth century B.C.E.,
however, records
that in Babylon a gold shekel purchased only two seahs of
barley.(9) Now,
one gold shekel was usually worth ten silver ones-meaning that
grain was
selling for 150 times its price at the earlier time!
The turmoil in Babylonia from the 12th to the tenth centuries
B.C.E. is
probably reflected in the Epic of Erra, apparently written in the
early
first millennium B.C.E. to celebrate the return to normalcy. In
this poem,
the principal Babylonian god, Marduk, abandons Babylon, and Erra,
the god of
pestilence, war and the underworld, gains control. Erra destroys
everyone-just and unjust, strong and weak-through fighting,
plague, famine
and natural disasters. Pleased with the devastation he has
wrought, Erra
reflects on how he has eliminated all social bonds and bred a
"dog-eat-dog"
sense of desperation:
Sea-land [the area at the head of the Persian Gulf] shall not
spare
Sea-land ... nor Assyrian Assyrian,
Nor shall Elamite spare Elamite, nor Kassite Kassite ...
Nor country country, nor city city,
Nor shall tribe spare tribe, nor man man, nor brother brother,
and
they shall slay one another.(10)
What Happened? Why the sudden, dramatic demise of the Bronze Age?
It used to be popular to cite invasions by outsiders-Dorians in
Greece, Sea
Peoples in Asia Minor and Syria, and Philistines and Israelites
in Canaan.
The Dorians, however, didn't settle in the Peloponnesus and Crete
until
several generations after the Mycenaean collapse. Moreover, the
Bronze Age
Mycenaeans, Hittites, Canaanites and Egyptians had long defended
themselves
against well-trained armies. So why did they now fall so easily
to
less-organized groups of invaders? No, the invasions and
population
movements of the early 12th century B.C.E. were probably symptoms
of
widespread political, economic and cultural collapse - not the
cause.
Others argue that the Bronze Age civilizations experienced a
"systems
collapse." Late Bronze Age political economies were too
narrowly based and
their trade networks too dependent on peaceful conditions. The
combination
of intrinsic social problems-resentments caused by slavery, the
alienation
of land and the abuse of peasants by the ruling aristocracy-and
piracy and
military conflicts disrupted trade at the end of the 13th
century. The
decline in trade led to economic hardship, increasing revolts and
a general
breakdown of political and social systems.(11) This theory helps
explain why
Bronze Age societies could not recover from the catastrophes of
the 12th
century B.C.E.
Again, however, we have a confusion of symptoms and causes. Why
did piracy
increase and trade decline at the end of the Bronze Age? What
made the
conflicts around 1200 B.C.E. different from those that had
frequently
occurred earlier? Why did social inequities that had existed
throughout the
Bronze Age suddenly lead to revolutions?
Still other scholars say that only natural forces can explain the
extensive
Bronze Age social and political collapse. Some of the
destructions (Knossos,
Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Troy, Hattusa, Alalakh and Ugarit), for
example, may
have been caused by earthquakes.(12) However, since earthquakes
are usually
localized phenomena and the destructions were widespread in
Greece,
Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, most scholars have dismissed
earthquakes as a
general cause of the death of the Bronze Age. Another earthquake
scenario,
however, is considered in the accompanying article by Amos Nur
and Eric H.
Cline: They argue that sequences of earthquakes, or
"earthquake storms,"
occurred over a 50-year period throughout the Aegean and eastern
Mediterranean, triggering a "systems collapse."
Prolonged drought has also been suggested as provoking the
crisis.(13) Much
of the agricultural land in the eastern Mediterranean is marginal
at best. A
small change in rainfall can have a major impact, even in the
volume of
water carried by rivers. Soaring prices for grain in Egypt and
Mesopotamia
and the Hittite appeals for grain have been used to support the
theory of
climatic change. Also, studies of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates
rivers
indicate that they were at very low levels during the 12th
century
B.C.E.(14) Moreover, studies of tree-ring sequences reveal a
climatic change
in the northern hemisphere between 1300 and 1000 B.C.E.; and a
series of
narrow rings on a log from Gordion, in Anatolia, indicates a
period of very
dry weather around 1200 B.C.E.(15) That was about the time the
Hittites
appealed to Egypt for grain to alleviate famine.
Obviously, food shortages due to extended drought could have led
to
discontent, increased piracy, revolts, conflicts and population
movements
such as those of the 12th century B.C.E. Such conflicts and
movements, once
begun, would have had a multiplier or "domino" effect
on other areas.
However, it has been argued that there simply is no evidence of a
drought
long enough and intense enough to have caused the collapse. The
texts at
Pylos in Greece produced just before its destruction give no
indication of
drought, food shortages or famine. The food shortages mentioned
in Near
Eastern texts and the inflationary prices for grain could have
resulted from
disorder and social collapse rather than being their cause. Also,
some Greek
palaces had stores of wheat, barley and other foods still in
their
storerooms when they were burned. So their attackers do not seem
to have
been seeking food.(16)
Here's our dilemma: All archaeologists agree that around the end
of the 13th
century B.C.E., the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean
and eastern
Mediterranean collapsed within 50 to 100 years of one another.
But, alas,
there is no consensus as to what actually brought about this
devastation.
Whatever the cause, one of the most glittering eras in human
history came to
an end.
This article is adapted from the author's forthcoming history of
the ancient
Near East.
--------------
References
1) The destruction of the palace at Knossos has been dated c.
1400-1380
B.C.E. by Sir Arthur Evans. A review of the evidence from
Knossos, however,
makes it likely that the palace continued to exist under
Mycenaean rule into
the 13th century B.C.E.
2) For a survey of sites, see R. Hope Simpson and O.T.P.K.
Dickinson, A
Gazetteer of Aegean Civilization in the Bronze Age, Vol. 1: The
Mainland and
Islands (Göteborg: Åström, 1979); and Robert Drews, The End of
the Bronze
Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.
(Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), pp. 21-26.
3) See V.R. d'A. Desborough, "The End of the Mycenaean
Civilization and the
Dark Age: (a) The Archaeological Background," in I.E.S.
Edwards et al.,
eds., The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. II, part 2
(Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 658-671.
4) R.W. Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete (Baltimore: Penguin Books,
1962), pp.
320-325; d'A. Desborough, "Mycenaean Civilization," pp.
675-677; Drews, End
of the Bronze Age, pp. 26-29.
5) Michael C. Astour, "New Evidence on the Last Days of
Ugarit," American
Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965), p. 255. For a different
interpretation of
this letter, see Harry A. Hoffner, "The Last Days of
Khattusha" in William
A. Ward and Martha S. Joukowsky, eds., The Crisis Years: The 12th
Century
B.C.: From the Danube to the Tigris (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt,
1992), p. 49.
6) Astour, "New Evidence," p. 255. Words in brackets
were added by the
author.
7) J. Neumann and Simo Parpola, "Climatic Change and the
Eleventh-Tenth-Century Eclipse of Assyria and Babylonia,"
Journal of Near
Eastern Studies 46:3 (July 1987), p. 178. See also D.J. Wiseman,
"Assyria
and Babylonia c. 1200-1000 B.C.," in The Cambridge Ancient
History, p. 465.
8) Neumann and Parpola, "Climatic Change," p. 178.
9) Neumann and Parpola, "Climatic Change," p. 181.
10) Amèlie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East (New York: Routledge,
1995), vol. 1,
p. 380. For the entire epic see Benjamin R. Foster, Before the
Muses: An
Anthology of Akkadian Literature (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1993),
vol. 2,
pp. 771-801.
11) See, for example, Philip P. Betancourt, "The End of the
Greek Bronze
Age," Antiquity 50 (1976), pp. 40-47; Nancy K. Sandars, The
Sea Peoples:
Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean, rev. ed. (New York: Thames
and
Hudson, 1985), pp. 47-49, 77-79, 197; Carlo Zaccagnini, "The
Transition from
Bronze to Iron in the Near East and in the Levant: Marginal
Notes," Journal
of the American Oriental Society 110 (1990), pp. 493-502; and
Oliver
Dickinson, The Aegean Bronze Age (New York: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1994),
pp. 307-309.
12) See the summary in Drews, End of the Bronze Age, pp. 33-37.
See also
Eberhard Zangger, The Flood from Heaven: Deciphering the Atlantis
Legend
(New York: William Morrow, 1992), pp. 82-85.
13 See, for example, Rhys Carpenter, Discontinuity in Greek
Civilization
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1966); R.A. Bryson, H.H. Lamb and D.L.
Donley,
"Drought and the Decline of Mycenae," Antiquity 48
(1974), pp. 46-50; B.
Weiss, "The Decline of Late Bronze Age Civilizations as a
Possible Response
to Climatic Change," Climatic Change 4 (1982), pp. 172-198;
William H.
Stiebing, Jr., "Climate and Collapse-Did the Weather Make
Israel's Emergence
Possible?" Bible Review, August 1994.
14 Karl W. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt
(Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 30-33; P.A. Kay and D.L. Johnson,
"Estimation of
Tigris-Euphrates Streamflow from Regional Paleoenvironmental
Proxy Data,"
Climatic Change 3 (1981), pp. 251-263.
15) See, for general tree-ring sequences, H.H. Lamb,
"Reconstruction of the
Course of Postglacial Climate Over the World," in A.P.
Harding, ed.,
Climatic Change in Later Prehistory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ.
Press,
1982), pp. 147-148; and, for Gordion, P.I. Kuniholm,
"Dendrochronology at
Gordion and on the Anatolian Plateau," Summaries of Papers,
76th General
Meeting, Archaeological Institute of America (New York, 1974), p.
66.
16) See Drews, End of the Bronze Age, pp. 82-84.
Copyright © 2001 Biblical Archaeology Society
=============
(6) EDINBURGH BLASTS OFF ON A JOURNEY INTO SPACE
>From Electronic Herald, 9 October 2001
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/9-10-19101-0-51-2.html
DAVID MONTGOMERY
IT may not quite be a space odyssey, but 2001 is to be the year
that
astronauts, lunar rocks, and satellites touch down in Scotland.
Edinburgh has been designated Europe's first Space City, an
honour which
will culminate next month in the capital's hosting of a
high-level
conference to map out the future direction of European space
exploration and
research.
In the run up to the European Space Agency's ministerial meeting
a
wide-ranging programme of events and activities has been
organised,
including the arrival today of a full-scale model of the Envisat
satellite,
which is scheduled for launch into space next year.
Donald Anderson, leader of Edinburgh City Council, said that
being awarded
the Space City title was a great accolade and reflected the
capital's proud
record in sciences and as home to the world's largest science
festival.
"Space science is an extremely exciting field that everyone
can take an
interest in," he said. "This is a world-class event to
attract to the city
and we look forward to honouring the prestigious title of
European Space
City and through that, bring the work of ESA to a wider
audience."
ESA's Space City programme is being launched in Edinburgh, with
other
European cities becoming involved in future years. Events
organised include
the Building the Universe exhibition at Our Dynamic Earth, which
examines
what the universe is made of and what holds it together.
Professor Ian Halliday, chief executive of the Particle Physics
and
Astronomy Research Council, said: "This display brings
together our
scientific knowledge of the universe and presents it in a way
everyone can
understand, kids and adults alike."
Also on display at Our Dynamic Earth will be samples of lunar
rock and
meteorites collected during Nasa's manned space missions to the
moon in the
late 60s and early 70s. A series of lectures will explore a range
of
space-related topics, including the search for life beyond the
solar system,
the future of space flight, and the relevance of space
exploration in modern
society.
Umberto Guidoni, the first European astronaut to visit the
international
space station, will be talking about his experiences and the
training he
needed to get there.
The two-day ESA meeting, beginning on November 14, will involve
Lord
Sainsbury, the UK science minister, and many of his European
counterparts.
Franco Bonacina, a spokesman for ESA, said: "Europe must be
at the forefront
of space activities, and we are delighted that Edinburgh is
assisting in
making this happen."
Copyright 2001, Electronic Herald
============
(7) ANCIENT, GIGANTIC DRAINAGE BASIN BECAME AQUIFER ON MARS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
News Services
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Contact Information:
James M. Dohm, 520-626-8454, jmd@hwr.arizona.edu
Justin C. Ferris, 520-370-6357, ferris@hwr.arizona.edu
Victor R. Baker, 520-621-7875, baker@hwr.arizona.edu
Oct 9, 2001
Ancient, Gigantic Drainage Basin Became Aquifer on Mars
By Lori Stiles
An enormous ancient drainage basin and aquifer system lies hidden
and
deformed in one of the most geologically dynamic landscapes on
Mars,
scientists conclude from a comprehensive, more than 10-year
study.
They estimate that a basin almost the size of the United States
or Europe
for billions of years covered part of Tharsis, a magmatically
active bulge
in the western hemisphere. Tharsis landforms are a complex of
towering
volcanoes, lava flow fields, igneous plateaus, fault and rift
systems,
flood channels, vast canyo systems, and tectonic features. Most
scientists
believe that periodic release of internal planetary heat at
Tharsis has for
more than three billion years had a major impact on Mars'
geology, hydrology
and climate.
Parts of the aquifer may harbor near-surface water and possibly
life, they
add.
University of Arizona hydrologist James M. Dohm and his
colleagues are
reporting their basin/aquifer system hypothesis both in an
article in the
Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets and in a 3-dimensional
animation
on the Internet.
A 2.2 megabyte QuickTime version can be downloaded from the UA
website, 3-D
animation - Tharsis evolution,
http://uanews.opi.arizona.edu/movies/tharbasin.mov
(2.3MB)
(QuickTime software can be downloaded at download QuickTime
software,
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download).
The JGR Planets paper can be
downloaded as a pdf file at JGR Planets,
http://www.agu.org/pubs/pip/2000JE001468.pdf
(12MB)
Collaborating in the research are Justin C. Ferris, Victor R.
Baker and
Robert G. Strom of the University of Arizona, Robert C. Anderson
of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,Trent M. Hare and
Kenneth L.
Tanaka of the U.S. G.S.-Flagstaff, Nadine G. Barlow of the
University of
Central Florida, and James E. Klemaszewski of Arizona State
University.
They estimate that the 45 million cubic kilometer (11 million
cubic mile)
Tharsis basin ranged between 2 kilometers to 7 kilometers in
depth (1.2
miles to 4.4 miles) and, if filled to an average depth of 5
kilometers (3.1
miles), would have a capacity of 12 billion billion gallons.
As lavas, sediments and volatiles (primarily water) partly
infilled the
basin early in Mars' history, the basin was transformed into a
vast regional
aquifer. This aquifer would serve as a potential source for water
that
carved what are believed to be the largest flood channels in the
solar
system, and helped fill lakes and oceans on ancient northern
Mars.
If the terrestrial materials that filled the Tharsis basin are as
porous as
sediments and lavas on Earth, "then the potential volume of
water contained
in the aquifer would be more than equivalent to the volume of
water required
to create the putative ocean in the northern plains," the
scientists wrote.
Baker, Strom, and others have long theorized that Mars' northern
plains
featured an ocean about a third as large as Earth's Indian Ocean
and a
smaller ocean the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean at least once in
the ancient
past. Baker and colleagues have since developed this idea as the
"MEGAOUTFLO" hypothesis. The theory says that Mars'
history is punctuated by
pulses of magmatic activity which trigger catastrophic floods,
formation of
oceans or lakes in the northern plains, and brief episodes of
climate change
lasting tens of thousands of years.
The scientists' 3-D visualization portrays how the Tharsis region
landscape
evolved over the past more than 3 billion years. The movie
summarizes five
geologic stages, with stage one depicting the ancient drainage
basin and
stage five depicting the present-day Tharsis landscape.
Dohm and colleagues based the sequentially reconstructed ancient
terrains on
geological and hydrological research. They synthesized analyses
by many
planetary scientists who began studying Viking data more than a
decade ago
and recently obtained high-resolution topographic data from the
Mars Orbiter
Laser Altimeter on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.
The movie is "not a quantitatively accurate reconstruction
of martian
paleotopography at discrete time steps," the scientists
wrote. "Such a
reconstruction may well be possible at a future date when more
data become
available." It is "an illustrated working
hypothesis" that leads to the
identification of an ancient, gigantic drainage basin that
persists through
much of the history of the region" and is consistent with
diverse
observations of martian geology, they said.
"Large topographic highs, including mountain ranges, an
igneous plateau,
topographic rises resulting from tectonism and other
magmatic-driven
processes, and large impact craters formed the margin of the
gigantic
drainage basin," Dohm said.
Magmatic and tectonic activity later fractured, deformed and, in
places,
exposed the stacked sequences of water-bearing layers in the
aquifer, he
added. The researchers interpret the layered canyon walls of
Valles
Marineris at the center of the proposed drainage basin, for
example, to be
basin fill comprised of layered flood lavas possibly laced with
eroded lake
and wind deposits.
Magmatic and tectonic energy also drove sediment-charged flood
waters toward
the northern plains and transferred water laterally so it
collected at
unmodified parts of the aquifer.
"The unmodified parts of the basin/aquifer system appear
still to contain
near-surface water reservoirs that may one day be sampled and
analyzed by
astronauts," Dohm said. He collaborated with Nadine Barlow
of the University
of Central Florida in recent research that suggests Mars today
has such a
"watering hole."
More, there may be hydrothermally active sites in the
basin/aquifer similar
to hydrothermally active sites on Earth now known to harbor life,
Dohm said.
These potential aqueous environments are prime candidates for
hydrologic,
mineralogic and "exobiologic" exploration, Dohm and his
colleagues emphasize.
Before he joined the UA in 1999, Dohm worked more than a decade
at the U.S.
Geological Survey in Flagstaff as assistant coordinator of
NASA-funded Mars
and Venus mapping programs, now called the Planetary Mapping
Program.
IMAGE CAPTIONS:
[ http://uanews.opi.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/wa/SRStoryDetails?ArticleID=4330
]
[Image 1]
3-D portrayal of the ancient drainage basin on early Mars.
(Graphic:
Courtesy of James Dohm et. al)
[Image 2]
Approximate location of the ancient drainage basin is indicated
by the blue
dash on this MOLA image of the present Tharsis landscape (Map:
Courtesy of
MOLA team)
[Image 3]
3-D portrayal of present-day Tharsis landscape (Graphic: Courtesy
of James
Dohm et al.)
=============
(8) RAS MEETING ON EARTH'S SPACE ENVIRONMENT
>From Peter R Bond <100604.1111@compuserve.com>
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
PRESS INFORMATION NOTE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 11 October 2001
Ref.: PN 01/29
Issued by:
Peter Bond,
RAS Press Officer (Space Science).
10 Harrier Close,
Cranleigh,
Surrey, GU6 7BS,
United Kingdom.
Tel: +44 (0)1483-268672
Fax: +44 (0)1483-274047
E-mail: 100604.1111@compuserve.com
RAS Web: http://www.ras.org.uk/ras/
MEETING DETAILS: http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_seminar/roy.html
CONTACT DETAILS ARE LISTED AT THE END OF THIS RELEASE.
PLANET EARTH AND ITS PLACE IN SPACE
A Discussion Meeting on "Science and Applications of the
space environment:
New Results and Interdisciplinary Connections"
at the Royal Society, 6 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1 5AG
16-18 October 2001
Planet Earth, the "third rock from the Sun", is a small
world, vulnerable to
many potentially dangerous or catastrophic natural influences.
On 16-18 October, a meeting at London's Royal Society will bring
together
experts on our Earth and its space environment to discuss new
results and
links between different areas of study.
Members of the press are invited to attend the meeting free of
charge,
though advance registration (to rer@mssl.ucl.ac.uk) would be
appreciated.
THE PROGRAMME
Studies of the space environment cover many aspects of science,
applications
and engineering, including exciting areas that are currently
generating
intense interest for the media and the general public.
The main themes of the meeting are: Earth and planetary
environments, the
Sun's influence on the Earth, hazards for Earth in space and
spacecraft
technology. There is also a presentation about space debris, dust
and
near-Earth objects.
Associated with this Discussion Meeting, the Foundation for
Science and
Technology is organising a meeting on "Using space for the
public good".
"There has been too little communication between the
different disciplines
of space science, between those who 'look up' and those who 'look
down', yet
their techniques and concepts are similar," said Professor
Julian Hunt, one
of the organisers of the meeting. "We hope the conference
helps overcome the
institutional, and funding barriers to these
collaborations."
The meeting format will consist of invited talks for key topics,
with poster
presentation sessions (including short plenary presentations) and
panel
discussions to encourage wide participation.
The main topics of the meeting will be:
16 OCTOBER, 14:00 - 18:00.
Observation of the Earth and other planets: climate change, ocean
and sea
bed studies, land use monitoring, Earth's atmosphere, lessons
from other
planets
17 OCTOBER 09:30 - 12:40
The Sun-Earth connection and the space environment: understanding
the Sun,
impacts on the near-Earth environment, the magnetosphere, Sun and
climate,
space weather.
17 OCTOBER 14:00 - 17:30
Hazard warning and forecasting for Earth and space: magnetic
storms and
severe weather forecasting, volcanoes, hydrology, air pollution.
18 OCTOBER O9:30 - 15:20 (INCLUDING LUNCH BREAK)
Space debris, dust and near-Earth objects.
Space and spacecraft technologies: communications, navigation,
cryogenics in
space, advanced spacecraft technologies, technology benefits for
science and
applications, software, formation flying, miniaturisation, the
enabling role
of satellites.
The full programme can be seen at:
http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_seminar/roy.html
NOTES FOR EDITORS.
The conference is organised by Professor Julian Hunt of
University College
London and Professor Len Culhane of University College London's
Mullard
Space Science Laboratory, assisted by Dr. Andrew Coates (also of
MSSL-UCL).
The meeting is sponsored by Astrium, the British Antarctic
Survey, the
British National Space Centre, the Council for the Central
Laboratory of the
Research Councils, Eumetsat, the Natural Environment Research
Council, the
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and QinetiQ
(formerly the
Defence Evaluation Research Agency).
CONTACTS:
Dr Andrew Coates
Mullard Space Science Laboratory/University College London
Holmbury St. Mary
Dorking,
Surrey,
RH5 6NT,
UK
Tel: +44
(0)1483-204145/274111
Fax: +44 (0)1483-278312
E-mail: ajc@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
Professor Len Culhane,
Mullard Space Science Laboratory/University College London
(same address)
Tel: +44 (0)1483-274111
E-mail: jlc@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
Professor Julian Hunt
Department of Space & Climate Physics,
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
UK
Tel: +44 (0)20-7679-7743
E- mail: jcrh@ucl.ac.uk
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(9) ASTEROIDS IN HONOUR OF TERRORISM VICTIMS
>From Javier Andres Licandro Goldaracena <jlicandr@ll.iac.es>
Dear Benny
This mail is to congratulate the members of the IAU Commitee for
Small-Body
Nomenclature for their decision on naming asteroids in honour of
the victims
of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. I am sure it was not an easy
choise for
some of them. We are all affected by this horrible act,
but in particular people in the United States. Compassion,
Solidarity, and
Magnanimity, three basic principles to analyze what is happening
now in the
world, what it was happening before Sept. 11, and what we should
do in the
future to try to solve this problem and to make a
better world for all of us, not only for those that live in
developed
countries. But as this discussion is for a political network, not
for this
one, and even if the CCNet has been used incorrectly, in my
opinion, since
Sept. 11, I will stop here. CCNet has been a wonferful
tool for those who work with solar system objects, I hope
it continues
been.
Cheers,
Javier Licandro
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