|
So many people claimed jedi knight as their religion on the 2001 census in Great Britain that the collation team has had to create a new code to record the numbers. Jedi Knight joins mainstream religions Church of England, Roman Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu as well as druidism, and Wicca and others on the nearest thing to a listing of official British religions. The Office of National Statistics said 'We are not defining what a religion or a faith might be, only recognising what some may have entered on their census form and ensuring that our coding framework will cater for it.'
It really is shining above! Satellie Starshine 3 is a 200-lb
satellite, a metre-wide sphere studded with 1500 student-built mirrors. It is
designed to be clearly visible overhead, spinning and glittering like an
oversized disco ball.
"Starshine 3 is on a mission to explore the outer reaches of Earth`s
atmosphere and to discover what happens to satellites there," said Prof.
Gil Moore, project director. About 40,000 students from all parts of the world
helped polish Starshine 3`s distinctive mirrors. And now that the "disco
ball" is in space, students are going to help again by monitoring
Starshine 3 as it falls .... at first slowly, then later with greater haste ...
back to Earth.
Starshine 3 is falling because the atmosphere is dragging it down. The
satellite is orbiting 470 km above Earth in a region scientists call the
thermosphere. The air at that altitude is very thin -- about 1012 times less
dense than the air at sea level. Indeed, it seems more like space than a part
of Earth. The thermosphere is where the International Space Station (ISS), the
space shuttle, and many other satellites orbit.
Even though the thermosphere is practically vacuum-thin, it`s still dense
enough to sap orbital energy from satellites by means of aerodynamic drag. Soon
after the Kodiak Star disgorged it, Starshine 3 began to lose altitude --
dropping a few meters during each 90 minute orbit around our planet. The same
thing happens to the ISS, which requires periodic re-boosts.
Starshine 3 will slowly descend during the next 4 years," says Moore. As
it sinks into ever denser layers of the atmosphere, its rate of orbital decay
will accelerate. Eventually, when it sinks below the stratosphere, Starshine 3
will burn up
Moore added: "Starshine 3 usually looks as bright as a 1st magnitude star
when it passes overhead." During a typical transit the rotating satellite
will seem to flash every few seconds as sunlight glints off one mirror after
another. The trail of bright dots and dark dashes across the sky is
unmistakable. Website:www. Heavens-Above.com
Astronomers from the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank
Observatory and other members of an international team have found gas between
the densely packed stars that make up the globular cluster, 47 Tucanae.
47 Tucanae is one of about 140 globular clusters associated with our galaxy,
the Milky Way. As they contain up to a million stars packed into a relatively
small space, the combined starlight near its centre would make night as bright
as day! 47 Tucanae is one of the most spectacular globular clusters and can be
easily seen with the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere. At a distance of
16,000 light years it is roughly the same size in the sky as the full moon. The
stars in such clusters are very old, and many will have shed much of their mass
into space during cataclysmic explosions at the end of their lives. For over 40
years, astronomers have looked for gas in these clusters without success but
now, at last, it has been detected.
Using the 64-m Parkes radio telescope in Australia, the research team have
discovered more that 20 of these exotic objects in 47 Tucanae. They have made
very precise observations of the minute changes in the observed rotation rates
due to the doppler shift caused by the gravitational pull of the cluster. This
has enabled them to determine their positions within the cluster. As one would
expect, some are on the far side and some on the near side of the cluster's
centre. A further measurement made for each pulsar measures the amount of
material and gas in the line of sight to us. To their delight, the team found
that those on the far side of the cluster had more gas in front of them than
those on the near side, thus proving the presence of gas within the cluster.
Dr. Paulo Freire explains, "Astronomers have searched for indications of
the expected gas at all frequencies across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Finally we have now a solid detection using a radio telescope to observe
pulsars which act as highly sensitive probes of the cluster environment."
Although it needs high precision measurements to detect the gas in the cluster,
Dr. Fernando Camilo stresses, "the measured gas density is about 100 times
larger than we would have expected from the interstellar medium surrounding 47
Tucanae."
Dr. Michael Kramer points out that the previously unsuccessful observations at
other wavelengths are also important to understand their new result. From the
previous measurements it can be inferred that the gas detected by the team must
represent almost all the material existing in the cluster medium.
Astronomers had looked for gas because it is expected to be accumulated from
the mass loss of the massive stars in the cluster and it has been a mystery
where the cluster gas had gone. Several explanations had been put forward to
explain the missing gas and amongst these were the winds from pulsars. It is
somewhat ironic that the very same objects that may be responsible for the
removal of most of the gas, have finally lead to its detection.
On 16 October the Airbus A-300 "Zero-g" will take
off from Bordeaux-Mérignac airport in France for the first of three
parabolic flights designed to carry out experiments in weightlessness before
they are conducted in real spaceflight.
Parabolic flights are practically the only terrestrial means of reproducing
weightlessness with human operators on board. During a parabolic flight, the
Airbus A-300 "Zero-G" pilot - flying at an altitude of approximately
6000 metres, usually in a specially reserved air corridor above the Bay of
Biscay - first performs a nose-up manoeuvre to put the aircraft into a steep
climb (to 7600m). This generates an acceleration of 1.8g (1.8 times the
acceleration of gravity on the ground) for about 20 seconds. Then the pilot
reduces engine thrust to almost zero, injecting the aircraft into a parabola.
The plane continues to climb until it reaches the apex of the parabola (8500m),
when it starts descending. This descent lasts about 20 seconds, during which
the passengers in the cabin float in the weightlessness resulting from the free
fall of the aircraft. When the angle below the horizontal reaches 45°, the
pilot accelerates again and pulls the aircraft back up to steady horizontal
flight. The manoeuvres are repeated 30 times per flight.
In the physical sciences field, one of the experiments is related to fluid
physics, a combustion experiment will study diffusion flames, another
experiment will investigate plasma and the last two will study interactions of
cosmic and atmospheric particle systems in the framework of an international
research programme.
In life sciences, three experiments will measure physiological parameters in
human subjects and two biology experiments will investigate movements of plants
and fish.
The next (32nd) ESA parabolic flight campaign is scheduled for spring 2002 and
will have a mixed complement of experiments in life and physical sciences,
including experiments proposed by students.
 |
Deep Space 1 has survived, flown past the
core of comet Borrelly and sent back remarkable pictures and data. Closest
approach was a bare 2,200 kilometers from the comet's rocky, icy core, at which
time DS1 captured the best-resolution pictures to date of any comet's nucleus.
Onboard instruments also measured the composition of gases swirling around the
nucleus and revealed new information about how those gases interact with the
solar wind. This first picture shows the 8km nucleus and the second is a high
resolution image showing jets of gas, plus a what might be a crater rim or a
deep gouge in the surface. |
 |
On October 24, 1998, Deep Space 1 was launched, with a name very
similar to, but not quite the same as that of a TV series. DS1 was a flying
testbed for much untried technology: a long-lasting ion propulsion engine, a
solar array that focused sunlight for extra power, and software that endowed
the craft with artificial intelligence to conduct its own affairs. They all
worked -- many beyond expectations. DS1's ion engine, for instance, is now the
longest-operating propulsion system in the history of the space program.
Now the probe is to be tested with a fly-by of a comet, 19P/Borrelly - an
intriguing comet that had veered toward the Sun during the 19th century when it
passed too close to Jupiter. It's been swinging through the inner solar system
every 6.9 years
Just after the decision was made, in late 1999, its guidance system, called the
"Star Tracker," suddenly failed. The Star Tracker was a computerised
camera (ironically not one of the probe's experimental devices) that measured
DS1's orientation with respect to the stars. Without it, the spacecraft was
lost. The solution was to reconfigure "MICAS" (an experimental camera
that DS1 had just finished testing) to serve as a makeshift Star Tracker.
However, Deep Space 1 was 300 million km away and out of touch. They
transmitted radio commands across interplanetary space, telling the onboard
computer how it could transform MICAS into a star tracking navigator.
It worked. On June 28, 2000, with MICAS at the helm, Deep Space 1 aimed for the
comet and revved its ion engine -- the beginning of a 15-month journey. Twice
since then solar storms have scrambled the makeshift navigation system, and
once MICAS tried to fix on a star that was too dim. In each case, the DS1 team
managed to coax the spacecraft back to normal The comet is visible at present,
through a 10 inch or larger telescope.
Glowing at 9th magnitude in the constellation Gemini, it looks like a fuzzy
blob with a short, faint tail.
How to get a comet named after you…Find it. Simple?
Not really, but still possible. Comets are named after their discoverers,.
Hale-Bopp, Hayakutake and Shoemaker-Levy are just a few of the names we know
... because of comets. But, with the advance of new technology, just about
every new comet is called "LINEAR" or "NEAT(This year between
January and mid-August such telescopes recorded 18 new comets, while humans had
found none)
Vance Petriew of Regina, Saskatchewan -- a computer consultant by day and an
amateur astronomer by night -- was at the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party on
August 18 when he turned his 20" telescope toward the Crab Nebula. Hopping
from one star to another across the constellation Taurus, Petriew guided his
telescope toward the famous supernova remnant -- but he never made it. He
stopped instead at a curious smudge that appeared unexpectedly in his eyepiece.
"I almost passed it by because I was looking for the Crab Nebula,"
says Petriew, "and this wasn't it." But there was something
intriguing about the smudge, something that made Petriew investigate further.
"Thinking it might be a galaxy, I looked at my star charts to see if any
were nearby. Just then Richard Huziak (Saskatoon Centre, Royal Astronomical
Society of Canada) happened to walk over for the first time that night."
Huziak was familiar with the region of sky and knew that no eye-catching galaxy
was in the vicinity. The pair quickly realized that Petriew had stumbled onto
an unknown comet. "It's like winning the lottery!" says Petriew.
"Only [two people] in the whole world discovered a comet last year the
same way I did. It's pretty cool to have one named after me and I'm very
excited!"
World Space Week is just around the corner - 4th to 10th October 2001! See our website, www.secuk.org/spaceweek for forthcoming events.
The European Space Agency's TEACH SPACE 2001 Education
Conference for teachers will be held between Friday 26 and Sunday 28 October at
the European Space Agency's ESTEC centre in Noordwijk in the Netherlands.
Teachers in every discipline are invited to come and exchange practical ideas
on how the International Space Station -- the largest international project of
all time - can inspire their students. Once completed, the 450-tonne ISS will
have more than 1200 cubic metres of pressurised space - enough room for seven
crew and a vast array of scientific experiments orbiting around 400 km above
the Earth.
TEACH SPACE 2001 is designed to help European teachers use the ISS as a
classroom resource, linking their students to the excitement and inspiration of
the high frontier - where European technology is already making a vital
contribution. The children of today are future scientists, engineers and space
explorers. With the number of students studying sciences decreasing at a steady
rate it is crucial that young people are inspired and motivated to become more
involved in these fields and TEACH SPACE 2001 can help teachers do just that.
To make the conference even more accessible to Europe's teachers, ESA is now
offering subsidies as a minimum of € 200 towards teachers' accommodation
and travel costs.
Discovery landed safely after a one-orbit delay due to bad weather. On board were three astronauts who had spent nearly six months aboard the ISS. Discovery's flight lasted 12 days.
Patrick Stewart,(star trek) is returning to his Yorkshire roots and appearing in Johnson over Jordan at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in the North East of England from August 28 for a month
American astronomers from the University of California at Berkeley believe that they have found a solar system which is very similar to our own. The system, in the Plough - is around 47 Ursae Majoris which is chemically like the Sun. Five years ago a planet about two and a half times the sixe of Jupiter was spotted circling the star, which is just visible to the naked eye just beneath the blade of the Plough constellation, and now a second gas giant has been identified, about three quarters the size of Jupiter. The discovery throws up the speculation that the space between these gas giant planets and the star might, as with our solar system, be taken up by the orbits of more earth-like planets.
Launch of the sun seeking spacecraft Genesis has been postponed again, to Wednesday (August 1). Genesis was due for launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, to travel a million miles towards the Sun. It will spend two years in orbit collecting samples of the solar wind materials and then return. Travelling in the corona, at about 50,000deg c the samples will hopefully show some of the materials of the original solar nebula
Samples collected by balloon from 41 kilometers above the Earth's surface are bacteria from space, according to Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University, at a presentation in California. The Professor is a supporter of the panspermia theory - that life evolved in space and reached Earth on comets. He said that the chances that the material found comes from Earth was remote, and that he had detected between one and ten clumps of the bacteria per litre of air. The balloons were launched from India and were constructed to avoid contamination . A team, led by Prof David Lloyd of the University's Centre for Astrobiology is attempting to analyse the bugs and grow them
The European Space Agency is organising TEACH SPACE 2001, the first International Space Station Education Conference for teachers, between Friday 26 and Sunday 28 October at its ESTEC centre at Noordwijk in the Netherlands The is open to anyone who teaches children aged between 6-18, whatever their subject. Teachers, companies and space enthusiasts to share ideas with colleagues from other European countries., and have an opportunity to show their own space projects on space topics can be incorporated into daily teaching. The best projects will be selected for presentation at the conference and will compete for the title "Most Inspiring Project 2001 Website:http://www.estec.esa.nl/TEACHSPACE_2001
Artemis satellite has been successfully positioned in its
circular parking orbit at about 31000 km.
The satellite, launched from Kourou by an Ariane 5 on 12 July, had been put
into the wrong orbit due to a malfunction on the launcher'supper stage. The
injection orbit had a perigee of 590 km, an apogee of 17487 km and an
inclination of 2.94°, compared to expected values of 858 km, 35853 km and
2° respectively.
Since injection into orbit, the spacecraft's behaviour has been nominal,
allowing ESA to rapidly adopt a recovery strategy that aims to take the
satellite to a nominal geostationary position of approximately 36000 km,
The Royal Festival Hall in London will be the venue on Saturday for the premier of a new choral work which is a collaboration between composer David Bedford and SF doyen Sir Arthur C Clarke. The new work is based on The City and the Stars, the 1955 novel by Clarke, which he will read as a narration via film.
A new optical detector has been used on the William Herschel
Telescope to directly measure intensity and colour changes in a faint, rapidly
variable binary star system, UZ Fornacis, for the first time. A team from the
Space Science Department of the European Space Agency's Research and Technology
Centre in the Netherlands (ESA/ESTEC), who have developed the S-Cam camera,
were joined by astronomers from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) in
the UK to exploit this advanced instrument. With conventional optical CCD
detectors, very rapid changes in light intensity cannot be measured.
Furthermore, the energy or wavelength of the arriving photons can only be
measured by introducing a filter or spectrograph into the optical light path,
degrading the efficiency. With the new instrument, advanced detector elements
based on superconducting technology register the arrival of each photon
individually, and measure its energy and wavelength directly.
"We have a very powerful instrument for looking at faint astronomical
sources which vary rapidly, for example pulsars or binary star systems. It is
of particular interest when the light changes its energy distribution, or
colour, at the same time", said Dr. Michael Perryman, who has led this
astronomical investigation.
In the particular binary star system studied, one of the two stars is a white
dwarf
Many clues are contained in the very short interval of time in which the
intense light emitted by the infalling material is eclipsed by its larger but
fainter companion. The results show that the diameter of the accretion spot,
where material hits the white dwarf surface, is less than about 100 km.
An ESA-China scientific collaboration has got the go-ahead.
The project, Double Star, will enable European experiments to be flown on
Chinese satellites for the first time.
Double Star will follow in the footsteps of ESA's groundbreaking Cluster
mission by studying the effects of the Sun on the Earth's environment.
Conducting joint studies with Cluster and Double Star should increase the
overall scientific return from both missions.
A key aspect of ESA's participation in the Double Star project is the inclusion
of 10 instruments that are identical to those currently flying on the four
Cluster spacecraft. A further eight experiments will be provided by Chinese
institutes.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), the
European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory, in cooperation
with the European Association for Astronomy Education, have organised a
competition to find out what young people in Europe think. The European
Molecular Biology Laboratory and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
are also involved.
The "Life in the Universe" project is being mounted in collaboration
with the research directorate of the European Commission for the European Week
of Science and Technology in November this year. Competitions are already under
way in 23 European countries to find the best projects from school students
aged between 14 and 19. Entries can be in one of two categories: scientific or
artistic. The projects can therefore be essays, newspapers, websites, artworks,
poetry or even a theatrical or musical performance.
The home base of the "Life in the Universe" project is a vibrant
website http://www.lifeinuniverse.org where
details of the programme can be found. It is still under development but
already has a wealth of information and links to the national websites, where
all entries are posted.
|
|
New director of science at ESA Prof David Southwood has said
it is 'foolish' that the agency does not at least consider developing its own
manned capability. At present ESA's astronaut corps travels with either NASA or
the Russian agency.
Southwood has a personal interest. Asked if ESA might even move into space
tourism he is quoted as saying ' If anyone offered me the opportunity to go
into space, I would be very interested.'
The International Space Station has been given the 2001
Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. The award will be
bestowed on four space agencies involved in the Space Station: NASA (US),
Russia's Rosaviakosmos, Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA), and
ESA representing the 10 European countries participating in the Space Station.
The Spanish Centre for Space Law nominated the Space Station for the honour.
The Prince of Asturias Awards recognise and reward "scientific, technical,
cultural, social and humanistic work performed by individuals, groups or
institutions world-wide". The Award for International Co-operation is
"bestowed upon the individual, work group or institution whose work has
contributed in an exemplary and significant way to mutual understanding,
progress and brotherhood among nations."
Since 1931, when Karl Jansky accidentally invented the radio
telescope, astronomers have found again and again that there's more to the
Universe than the human eye can see. Radio telescopes, infrared and ultraviolet
detectors, x-ray and gamma-ray satellites -- they've revealed details of a
cosmos teeming with exotic objects like black holes and pulsars that don't show
up through the eyepiece of an optical telescope. Indeed, every part of the
electromagnetic spectrum has offered one surprise or another to astronomers.
Now scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre have opened a new
wavelength band for high-sensitivity astronomy: "hard" x-rays. Hard
x-rays are photons with about the same energy as medical x-rays (> 10 keV),
or ~20,000 times more energy than visible light. Such x-rays reveal some of the
most violent phenomena in the Universe, including colliding galaxies, fiery
stellar explosions, and hot disks that swirl around black holes. Astronomers
have flown hard x-ray detectors before, but until now none could focus the
radiation to produce crisp images with high sensitivity.
Hard x-rays are typically ten times more energetic than soft ones. For
comparison, the spectrum of visible light from red to violet, spans an energy
range that varies by less than a factor of three.
Judges for the 2001 James White Award are Michael Carroll;
Ian McDonald, Kim Newman; David Pringle, and Mike Resnick,
The award was established in honour of James White, and is open worldwide to
amateur Sf short story authors. Closing date is August 23rd 2001
Website:http://www.jameswhiteaward.com
The new Star Trek series, in pre-production in America, is set before the original series, and will detail mankinds first stumbling explorations of space. Enterprise, the fifth Trek series, will be set in the 22nd century, just after the invention of the warp drive and a century before the time of Captain Kirk
RTE - Ireland's national broadcaster will be recording the first two episodes of a new SF radio series live at Octocon, the Irish National Science Fiction Convention, to be held this year on October 13 and 14 in Dun Laoghaire. Con guest of honour is Anne McCaffrey. Websie: www.octocon.com
Author Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitch Hiker's Guide To the
Galaxy and of Dick Gently and his detective agency, collapsed and died while
working out at his home gym in California yesterday (Saturday) Douglas was 49
and had finished a new version of a big-screen HHG for Disney only a few days
before his death, from, it is thought, a heart attack. The story started as a
radio programme on the BBC in 1978, from there progressed to a BBC TV series
and a progression of books.
He was also a very successful script editor of Dr Who, when it starred Tom
Baker, who was able to invest the scripts overseen by Adams with totally
credible eccentricity.
An early convert to computers he would typeset his own books and launched
dotcoms H2G2, although this was not commercially successful.
He can be credited with doing more than most other SF authors with bringing the
genre into the mainstream, although it has been some years since he published
successfully.
He leaves a wife, Jane, and young daughter Polly.
The world's first space tourist landed safely back on home
planet on Sunday, still euphoric with the excitement of his $20million long
weekend on the ISS.
The trip was not without some controversy in America where NASA still insists
that his presence on the station was a very expensive distraction and concern
for the two US astronauts who remain in space. Dennis Tito and the russian
space authorities insist that he was no-where near the american presence,
staying 100 metres away from the US section except on arriving and departing
and spending most of his time earthwatching and taking photos .
|
New data from BT, the british phone company reveals that UK household phone use runs on a 29-day cycle with the peak always in the days just before the full moon
SF artist Anthony Roberts is to sue Turner-prize nominee
artist Glenn Brown over the work Brown called The Loves of Shepherds 2000, and
which bears a strong resemblance to the cover artwork by Roberts for the 1974
Heinlein book Double Star.
Roberts has said he intends to claim substantial damages for breach of
copyright and an injunction to stop the work being exhibited or reproduced -
already many thousand postcards have been sold by the Tate Gallery in London
where it is on display with other prize shortlisted works.
The structure of our Universe has been mapped out to a
distance of 14 billion light-years - almost as far as we can see - by
astronomers who have observed 11,000 quasars with the Anglo-Australian
Telescope in eastern Australia, in the largest quasar redshift survey to date.
The structure is much lumpier at large scales than anyone predicted. This work
has been done by Dr.
Robert Smith of Liverpool John Moores University at the UK National Astronomy
Meeting in Cambridge, UK, and by Professor Tom Shanks of the University of
Durham at 'The Dark Universe' symposium at the Space Telescope Science
Institute, Baltimore, USA.
"The lumpiness we see at very large-scales must be almost entirely
determined by the conditions in the fireball of the Big Bang during the first
second of the Universe's life," said Professor Shanks, co-leader of the
two-degree field (2dF) quasar survey.
"For this reason, we can say that the survey quasars are truly tracing the
map of creation." Website
http://www.aao.gov.au/press/cosmicbeaconimages.html
A stellar mass black hole-the first ever found in our
galactic halo,the region of space above and below the main spiral arms of our
galaxy, thousands of light years above the Milky Way galactic plane.
'It soon became clear from our observations that this object, which was first
detected a year ago by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, had to be a black hole
at least six times as massive as our sun,' said Professor Charles, head of
astronomy at Southampton's Department of Physics & Astronomy.on the south
coast of England.
Together with collaborators Dr Mark Wagner of the University of Arizona, Craig
B. Foltz, director of the MMT Observatory (MMTO), Sumner Starrfield of Arizona
State University, and Jorge Casares and Tariq Shahbaz of the Instituto de
Astrofisica de Canarias in Tenerife, Professor Charles has assembled the finest
'quiescent' observations (those taken during a period of inactivity) yet made
of this phenomenon. These quiescent observations have also made accurate mass
measurements possible.
The black hole, which is approximately 6,000 light years away, betrays its
presence by the effect it has on the motion of an orbiting star, smaller than
our sun, which is slowly transferring matter to the black hole. The period of
orbit is short-only 4.1 hours-which means that, astronomically speaking, this
binary star is nearing the end of its 'active' life.
'We are intrigued to find such an object in the galactic halo,' said Professor
Charles. 'Because this is so far above the galactic plane, there is almost no
interstellar medium between us and the object, so we can study it in detail
like no other object in its class.'
It was Professor Charles' colleague at Southampton, Dr Robert Hynes who,
intrigued by the object's unusual location within our galaxy, initiated the
first extreme ultra-violet observations of such an object, made possible
because of the unobscured line of sight.
|
It was announced in the House of Lords (The upper house of the UK Parliament) recently that the British government intends to investigate the danger - and possible solutions - to the dangers posed by Near Earth Objects.
'Expedition Two', the second crew of the International Space Station, has now taken over from the original three personnel. 'Expedition One' is returning home on the Shuttle Discovery after four and a half months in orbit. Website:http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station
Mir will also be coming back down to Earth, on Thursday (March 20). The 143 tonnes of burning space debris will come back down to Earth somewhere in the Pacific, between Chile and Australia. It is estimated that about 1,500 separate pieces of Mir will survive the re-entry to land at sea. The spectacular re-entry is due to be shown on television around the world.
The watched pot which started it all, the coffee pot downstairs in the computer department at Cambridge University which started up the web and then became the first webcam is to be retired. The £40 coffee percolator was down several flights of stairs and irked scientists set up a camcorder and wrote a program to relay the image onto their screens upstairs so that their journey down to get a cup was not met with an empty pot. When the web was invented soon after (only ten years ago!) they put it online and it has attracted 2.4 million hits since then. The Trojan room webcam and pot are being retired because the computer department is moving. Quentin Stafford-Fraser, the man behind the website said This system only took us a day or so to construct but was rather more useful than anything else I wrote while working on networks" Till later this year the pot is still to be found at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html
Only 35% of the Universe's contents is in the form of
matter, according to findings published in the journal Nature today by
astronomers using the Anglo-Australian Telescope near Coonabarabran in eastern
Australia. The rest is believed to be in the form of 'dark energy'. This
measurement, the most accurate to date, is based on data from 141,000 galaxies.
It confirms other studies indicating that the Universe will expand forever
because there is too little mass to provide gravity to rein it in.
The team has also gathered the best existing evidence that large-scale
structures in the Universe - giant superclusters of galaxies - evolve over time
by collapsing under the influence of gravity. "This has allowed us to
weigh the universe," said the paper's lead author, Professor John Peacock
of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.
The findings are the first major piece of science to arise from the 2dF
(two-degree field) galaxy survey, which leads the world in mapping galaxies. It
has now mapped more than 150,000 and will reach its target of 250,000 by the
end of the year, making it ten times larger than the largest previous survey.
"The matter density of the Universe is extremely low," said Dr
Matthew Colless of the Australian National University, one of the survey team
leaders. "On average there might be one atom per cubic metre of
space."
"The major constituent of the Universe is believed to be some kind 'dark
energy', which is pushing the Universe apart."
The 2dF survey shows clearly that ninety percent of galaxies are distributed on
the surfaces of big 'bubbles' in space, with the rest falling into dense
clusters.
"We use the galaxies as a tracer of mass in the Universe," explained
survey team member Professor Richard Ellis of Caltech.
"Of the total matter in the universe, most is in the form of 'dark
matter', which gives off no radiation," he said. "But it does seem
that the visible matter is distributed much like the dark matter. They know
about each other."
As the universe expands, the galaxies recede from us. The recession velocity
(speed) of a galaxy is proportional its distance from us, so the velocities can
be used to determine the positions of the galaxies in space.
The 2dF team used their map of the galaxy distribution to measure the total
mass density of the universe - what proportion of the Universe's content is
mass - in two ways.
In the first method, the astronomers compared the measured clumping of galaxies
into superclusters with the size of small temperature fluctuations in the
cosmic microwave background, which measure density fluctuations at early times.
The amount of growth in structure required to match the clumping today requires
the universe to have a 'flat' geometry (without spatial curvature), with about
35% of its energy in the form of matter and about 65% in the form of 'vacuum
energy', also known as 'dark energy'.
The astronomers also measured the mass density by looking at how galaxies move
under the influence of gravity.
As well as its recession velocity, any galaxy has a velocity that it has
acquired by falling towards other concentrations of mass - visible galaxies
and/or dark matter.
These extra velocities distort the structure of the galaxy survey map in the
direction looking out from Earth - that is, along our line of sight to the
galaxies.
A statistical analysis of these galaxy motions shows that on small scales the
galaxies are typically orbiting each other very rapidly in dense groups and
clusters, but that at larger scales the galaxies are all falling in towards
mass concentrations. The size of this infall is related directly to the amount
of matter in the Universe. This method too gives a figure for the mass density
that agrees well with the standard cosmological model. It also provides the
first detailed confirmation of the gravitational instability paradigm for the
formation of large-scale structure.
The findings are published in Peacock et al., "A measurement of the
cosmological mass density from clustering in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift
Survey," Nature Volume 410 Number 6825 Page 169 - 173 (2001).
From its perch on the surface of the Eros asteroid, NEAR's
gamma-ray spectrometer is detecting key chemical signatures of the planetesimal
-- data that scientists are anxious to retrieve.
"The gamma-ray instrument is more sensitive on the ground than it was in
orbit," says Goddard's Jack Trombka, team leader for the GRS. "And
the longer we can accumulate data the better To do its work the GRS relies
partly on cosmic rays, high-energy particles accelerated by distant supernova
explosions. When cosmic rays hit Eros, they make the asteroid glow, although
it's not a glow you can see with your eyes; the asteroid shines with
gamma-rays.
"Cosmic rays shatter atomic nuclei in the asteroid's soil," said
Trombka. Neutrons that fly away from the cosmic ray impact sites hit other
atoms in turn. "These secondary neutrons can excite atomic nuclei (by
inelastic scattering) without breaking them apart." Such excited atoms
emit gamma-rays that the GRS can decipher to reveal which elements are present.
"We can detect cosmic-ray excited oxygen, iron and silicon, along with the
naturally radioactive elements potassium, thorium and uranium," says
Trombka. Measuring the amounts of these substances is an important test of the
planetesimal hypothesis.
. Eros seems to harbour a mixture of elements that you would only find in a
solar system body unaltered by melting (an unavoidable step in the process of
forming rocky planets). But, says Cheng, there is a possible discrepancy.
"The abundance of the element sulphur on Eros is less than we would expect
from an ordinary chondrite. However, the x-ray spectra tell us only about the
uppermost hundred microns of the surface, and we do not know if the sulphur
depletion occurs only in a thin surface layer or throughout the bulk of the
asteroid."
How accurate can I be? Well in the case of a new system
launched today I can be the best in the world
Currently the calibration system world-wide relies upon "Standards"
that are held by various authorities and companies, and against which you
compare your own equipment and measurements. There is a generally accepted
world standard (for example the standard meter is held in France, and the
standard for electromagnetics is held in England), each country checks their
standard against this. From there companies will have their own standards that
they check against their country's standard, and so on. This chain will
continue down until eventually at the bottom of it all you have your piece of
equipment, which is several steps removed from the international (primary)
standard, and so has the errors introduced at each of these steps. The obvious
solution to this is to check your equipment directly against the primary
(international) standard, and hence have the ultimate in accuracy. Problem is
though that you won't be allowed near the primary standard.
It is this very problem that has been solved by the National Physical
Laboratories (NPL) at Teddington (London, UK) in association with BAE
SystemsThe new systems allows for a direct calibration of your equipment
against the primary standard held by NPL using an internet link.
This first system launched today at the headquarters of BAE SYSTEMS in London
allows for the calibration of Vector Network Analysers as used in the
measurement of microwave signals against the primary standard. This has
implications for many areas of industry including the defence, and mobile
communications sectors, as well as in medical fields. The system is based upon
the idea that once the equipment in use has been characterised by NPL, this can
be compared to their standard. Once this routine has been undertaken the user
can connect to NPL at any time, and using the characterised device allow NPL to
take control of their Network Analyser, and automatically calibrate it using
the knowledge that they already have of it, and the primary standard.
Work is already underway to develop similar systems for the infrared community,
and progress is leading rapidly towards a solution for those measuring Voltage
and Current.
For further information you can visit the websites at :-
http://www.npl.co.uk
http://ipimms.npl.co.uk
or contact Dr Nick Ridler at NPL
Two of SF's most prestigious awards shortlistings were recently announced:
BSFA award
Ash ~Mary Gentle
Revelation Space ~Alastair Reynolds
Perdido Street Station ~China Mieville
Redrobe ~Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Paradox ~John Meaney
Arthur C. Clarke shortlist
Parable of the Talents ~Octavia E. Butler
Ash ~Mary Gentle Usually dispatched
Cosmonaut Keep: Book One ~Ken Macleod
Perdido Street Station ~China Mieville
Revelation Space ~Alastair Reynolds
Salt ~Adam Roberts
Ever since its discovery in 1930 there has been argument
about whether Pluto is a true planet or a mere member of the bodies which make
up the Kuiper Belt. The argument is that Pluto is too small, too different in
structure, has a moon which is too big for it and has an eccentric orbit.
The body has never been visited by a probe from Earth, which has prompted Nasa
to revive plans recently. The status downgrade has come from the American
Museum of Natural History although it has been rebutted by other major
astronomical bodies.
Websites www.amnh.org
www.Iau.org
While it was long suspected that Earth would have a tail
like a solar wind trail, until the data from IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause to
Aurora Global Exploration) was examined it was never conclusively demonstrated.
Now the new instruments have shown that electrified gas plasma from the Sun
(solar wind) is distorted as it reaches and passes the Earth, causing the tail
by the solar wind buffeting the magnetosphere, which triggers a return flow in
the plasma.
Two SF names featured in this year's UK New Year's Honours
list, of special awards.
One of the highest honours goes to director Steven Spielberg, who has been
created an honourary knight by Queen Elizabeth in recognition of his
contributions to Great Britain's film industry. The director of Jurassic Park
and Raiders of the Lost Ark will receive the award and insignia on January 29
at the British Embassy in Washington from British ambassador Sir Christopher
Meyer. The award is honorary as Speilberg is a US citizen.
In the same honours list British actor Patrick Stewart--best known as Jean-Luc
Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise in Next Generation Star Trek and recently
also in the X-Men as Professor Charles Xavier has been made an Officer of the
British Empire. Stewart, 60, was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for
27 years.
FTL notes the recent death of Ray Walston, who played a martian come to earth in the in the 1960s series My Favourite Martian, aged 86. More recently he played Starfleet Academy gardener, Boothby, in both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. His last screen appearance was as recent as last September in the season premiere of Touched by an Angel.
Star Wars fans have directed hundreds of enquires to the small Stirlingshire village of Balfron, in Scotland, after someone spotted it on the map and made the connection with the planet of the same name (inhabitants live underground, planet too close to sun) Website: www.bigger.net.co.uk/balfronheritage.
Millenial Meteors
|
Mission control lost contact with Mir for 24 hours over Christmas, causing concern that if the ageing space station lost touch completely, the controlled re-entry and burn-up scheduled for February/March could turn into an uncontrolled crash anywhere on the planet.
Microscopic magnetic crystals found in a meteorite from Mars
are identical to grains produced by bacteria on Earth, hinting that life once
existed on our solar companion planet.
The crystals, indistinguishable to those on Earth, were found in meteorite
ALH84001, founded in the Antarctic in 1984.
Six Russian satellites, three military and three civilian, were lost when their Cyclone-3 launcher crashed over the Arctic Ocean. Some of the satellites were replacements for obsolete and failed early warning and navigation systems units - the navigation system once rivalled America's GPS but now only 11 of the 24 satellites are fully working.
-- In what ultimately may be their most significant
discovery yet, Mars scientists say high-resolution pictures showing layers of
sedimentary rock paint a portrait of ancient Mars that long ago may have
featured numerous lakes and shallow seas.
"We see distinct, thick layers of rock within craters and other
depressions for which a number of lines of evidence indicate that they may have
formed in lakes or shallow seas. We have never before had this type of
irrefutable evidence that sedimentary rocks are widespread on Mars," said
Dr. Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's
Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft at Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), San
Diego, CA. "These images tell us that early Mars was very dynamic and may
have been a lot more like Earth than many of us had been thinking." On
Earth, sedimentary rocks preserve the surface history of our planet, and within
that history, the fossil record of life. It is reasonable to look for evidence
of past life on Mars in these remarkably similar sedimentary layers," said
Malin. "What is new in our work is that Mars has shown us that there are
many more places in which to look, and that these materials may date back to
the earliest times of Martian history."
Malin added, "I have not previously been a vocal advocate of the theory
that Mars was wet and warm in its early history. But my earlier view of Mars
was really shaken when I saw our first high-resolution pictures of Candor
Chasma. The nearly identically thick layers would be almost impossible to
create without water."
Website with more photos:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/dec00_seds/
 |
 |
 |
Scientists have come to realise that certain complex
phenomena in nature share the common feature that 'extreme events' - that is,
events on a scale much larger than the average - are much more likely to happen
than we would expect from our 'everyday experience' or from traditional
theories. Examples of such phenomena include solar activity, earthquakes,
forest fires, space weather and turbulence. With the aim of understanding how
such phenomena behave, and being able to calculate how likely extreme events
are, world experts in the subject are holding a one-day workshop as part of the
Royal Astronomical Society's monthly meeting in London on 8 December. The
workshop, entitled 'Self Organised Criticality and Turbulence in the Solar
System' will provide a platform for researchers to air the latest results from
theoretical simulations and observations of these kinds of complex phenomena.
The meeting is being held at the Geological Society Lecture Theatre, Burlington
House, Piccadilly, London W1, from 10.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. on Friday 8
December. The organisers are Professor Sandra C. Chapman (Space and
Astrophysics, University of Warwick), Dr Sean Oughton (University College
London) and Dr Mervyn P. Freeman (British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge).
Details: http://www.astro.warwick.ac.uk/rasg.html
Probing into the heart of the Sun has earned a £1000
prize for a young astrophysicist at Cambridge University. Dr Marcus Bruggen has
been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society's Blackwell Prize offered annually
for the best PhD thesis in the UK on a topic in geophysics, planetary science
or solar physics.
Dr Bruggen is a graduate of Cambridge University, where he studied physics at
Trinity College. He worked for his PhD in the Institute of Astronomy in
Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Douglas Gough. After spending 18
months as a postdoctoral scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Astrophysik
in Munich, Dr Bruggen has returned to Cambridge to take up a Junior Research
Fellowship at Churchill College. Before going to Cambridge, he went to school
near Cologne in Germany. Part of the winning research was about certain
physical phenomena deep within the hot interior of the Sun and the effects they
have on the nuclear fusion processes that power the Sun. Another part of Dr
Bruggen's thesis dealt with waves that travel through the Sun. In particular,
he was interested in waves that travel from the side of the Sun facing Earth to
the far side, where they are reflected back. When the waves are reflected from
a sunspot, they suffer a time delay. Dr Bruggen developed a technique making
use of this effect to detect sunspot regions on the hidden side of the Sun.
This could have important applications for forecasting the likely effects on
Earth of material streaming away from the Sun.
The Blackwell Prize is sponsored by Blackwell Scientific Publications and is
administered by the Royal Astronomical Society's Education Committee. Also the
winner of a £1000 prize for his research on the cosmic microwave
background - the afterglow of the 'big bang' that fills the universe is Dr
Anthony Challinor of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge
who is this year's recipient of the Michael Penston prize, offered annually by
the Royal Astronomical Society for the best PhD thesis in the UK on a topic in
astronomy.
Dr Challinor is a graduate of Cambridge University, where he read Natural
Sciences at Queens' College. He studied for his PhD in the Astrophysics Group
at the Cavendish Laboratory under the supervision of Professor Anthony Lasenby
and has held a research fellowship at Queens' since 1998. This year he was
awarded a Post-doctoral Research Fellowship by the Particle Physics and
Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). Before going to Cambridge, he attended
Codsall High School in south Staffordshire, where his family live.
The winning research was about the physics behind the minuscule irregularities
in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is otherwise the same
everywhere in the universe. Dr Challinor explained, 'Information gleaned from
the CMB is helping to provide answers to many intriguing questions such as,
"What is the age and ultimate fate of the universe?" and "What
kind of matter dominates the universe?" Making reliable computations so
different theories can be tested against actual observations is an essential
part of the process.' Continuing his research, Dr Challinor is now involved in
data simulation and analysis in preparation for the European Space Agency's
'Planck' satellite mission, which is due for launch in 2007 and will measure
the properties of the CMB with unprecedented accuracy.
The Michael Penston Prize is sponsored jointly by the Particle Physics and
Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and by the Royal Astronomical Society,
through the Michael Penston Fund, which was established by Fellows of the
Society as a memorial to the late Dr Michael Penston, a distinguished
astrophysicist who had a special interest in astronomy education. It is
administered by the Royal Astronomical Society's Education Committee.
UK Sunday papers carried stories that the BBC is planning to revive Dr Who,
by producing a big-bucks feature film costing £250m and to be announced
next month.
The new Director-General of the huge public service broadcaster wants to
produce films in the same was as fellow UK TV channel, Channel 4, and emulate
the golden era of Sir Lew Grade (best known for Thunderbirds these days) (and
who's relative Michael Grade killed off the long running series) It seems
likely that the Daleks will lead the story in the first film, picking up on the
story of the Gallifrean Time Lord, which started, in black and white, in 1963.
A recent revival starring Paul McGann as the Doctor was met with a mixed
reception. No announcement yet on who will now play the Doctor.
Scrip involvement is the best way for an actor to ensure not
only that he gets a good slice of the wordcount, but that the words are right
for the character he plays. The latest actor to involve himself in a film in
this way will be Brent Spiner - Data in Trek's Next Generation. Series and film
producer Rick Berman said that Spiner has worked with screenwriter John Logan
to develop the story for the proposed tenth movie.
Logan has written the story, with Berman and Spiner. The premise has been
accepted and approved by all involved, and when all the cast contractual
arrangements are completed, John will start writing the full script."
Jonathan Frakes may not direct - he is involved with the production of another
film
This year's Leonid meteor show is not expected to be
particularly spectacular, but it should be easy for even the most amateur to
spot since the fleeting specs of light which are the debris of comet
Tempel-Tuttle seem to fly from the Moon tomorrow and Saturday nights.
"We're very, very confident of the storms coming in 2001 and 2002,"
says David Asher of the Armagh Observatory. "Peak rates during those years
should reach at least 10,000 meteors per hour as Earth passes through debris
trails from the comet."
Asher expects Leonids activity to reach 100 per hour on November 18, similar to
the recent Perseids display. Other forecasters anticipate higher rates --
around 700 per hour.
"The last quarter Moon will be in the constellation Leo on Nov. 18th,
practically on top of the Leonids radiant," says Mitzi Adams, an
astronomer at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre. "Moonlight will make
fainter meteors hard to spot, but if there's a strong outburst stargazers could
see plenty of Leonids in spite of the bright Moon."
For observers in the UK and Europe, the best chance of seeing meteors will be
at 03:44 on the morning of 18 November, as the Earth passes close to a stream
of debris released by Temple-Tuttle 260 years ago. At this time it may be
possible to see as many as 100 meteors an hour. This is ten times the general
meteor background rate that can be seen on any other night of the year.
More: http://www.spaceweather.com
Experiments in weightlessness will be flown on November
21-23 on the special "Zero-g" Airbus A300 during the 29th ESA
parabolic flight campaign, conducted from Bordeaux-Mérignac airport.
Three flights of 30 parabolas each are planned for the mornings of 21, 22 and
23 November. Organised by ESA, this campaign includes 11 experiments: four in
physical sciences, four in life sciences, two experiments proposed by students
and one serving educational purposes for the general public.
During a parabolic flight, the "Zero-g" Airbus pilot - flying at an
altitude of approximately 6000 metres, usually in a specially reserved
air-corridor above the Gulf of Gascogne - first performs a nose-up manoeuvre to
put the aircraft into a steep climb (7600m). This generates an acceleration of
1.8 g (1.8 times the acceleration of gravity on the ground) for about 20
seconds. Then the pilot reduces engine thrust to almost zero, injecting the
aircraft into a parabola. The plane continues to climb until it reaches the
apex of the parabola (8500m), then starts descending. This condition lasts for
about 20 seconds, during which time the passengers in the cabin float in the
weightlessness resulting from the free fall of the aircraft. When the angle
below the horizontal reaches 45°, the pilot accelerates again and pulls up
the aircraft to return to steady horizontal flight. These manoeuvres are
repeated 30 times per flight. More:
http://www.estec.esa.nl/spaceflight/parabolic
In March, 2002, little CHIPSat, built for UC Berkeley by
SpaceDev, will be launched as a hitchhiker on a Boeing Delta 2 rocket into low
earth orbit to begin gathering unique space science data.
The tiny, earth-orbiting space science satellite, the smallest and least
expensive ever funded by NASA, will carry the Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma
Spectrometer (CHIPS) instrument, built under the direction of Dr. Mark Hurwitz
of the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. This is the first in NASA's new
University Explorer (UNEX) mission series, and will create large amounts of new
human knowledge about the structure and evolution of the universe.
UNEX missions are the smallest, least inexpensive, innovative missions that
make up the UNEX part of NASA's Explorer Program.
Does anyone else remember a TV series from wayback called
Salvage one. Perhaps it was based on a more sound premise than originally
realised for a recently spotted near-Earth object may be a bit of space debris
which has gone into a close orbit to Earth.
Although SG344 is nearby now, scientists say there is no appreciable chance of
a collision for at least 70 years. 2000 SG344 was discovered by
asteroid-hunters on September 29 as it was gliding by Earth approximately 20
times farther away than the Moon. Astronomers quickly realised that the faint
object was unusual. Its 354 day orbit is very much like Earth's, so much so
that 2000 SG344 might not be an asteroid at all, but rather a piece of manmade
rocket debris.
The NEO, which is moving a bit faster than Earth, is slowly drifting away and
won't return for 30 years. When first spotted it seemed that there was a
likelihood of an impact with the Earth in 30 years, but astronomer Carl
Hergenrother has found "pre-discovery" images of 2000 SG344 from May
1999 in archives from the Catalina Sky Survey.
"The pre-discovery images let us calculate a better orbit that absolutely
rules out a collision in 2030," says Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's
Near Earth Object program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It won't come
any closer to Earth than 11 lunar distances. However," he added, "the
new orbit increases the chances of encounters in years after that. For example,
there is a 1-in-1000 chance of a collision on September 16, 2071."
In 1971, the last time 2000 SG344 was in the vicinity of Earth, NASA's Apollo
program was in full swing. 2000 SG344 may well be debris from an Apollo-era
rocket masquerading as a space rock.
"Initially we thought it was too bright (and thus too large) to be a
rocket fragment, but it's possible that this is the S-IVB stage from a big
Saturn V," continued Yeomans. "S-IVBs" were booster rockets that
propelled Apollo Command and Service Modules toward the Moon from their parking
orbits around Earth. "Many of those boosters were targeted to hit the
Moon, but the S-IVBs from Apollo 8 through 12 went into orbit."
The first ever James White Award has been won by Mark Dunn for his short story Think Tank. It was one of over 100 received by the organisers. The judges were author Morgan Llewellyn, author Michael Scott, representing Hughes & Hughes, David Pringle, editor of Interzone magazine, critic and author Mr David Langford and author Michael Carroll. The award to be made in memory of James White, and is open only to previously unpublished writers. This year's award was sponsored by Hughes & Hughes and science fiction magazine Interzone
At 0430 Universal Time on
October 31, the 5-km long space rock Toutatis passed less than 29 lunar
distances from Earth. It is one of the largest known "Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids" (PHAs) and its orbit is inclined less than
half-a-degree from Earth's..
A group of astronomers is monitoring Toutatis this week using NASA's Goldstone
planetary radar in the Mojave desert. They will bounce radio signals off the
fast-moving asteroid to learn more about the path it follows through space and
the peculiar way it spins.
Unlike planets and the vast majority of asteroids, which rotate around a single
pole, Toutatis has two spin axes. It twirls around one with a period of 5.4
Earth-days and the other once every 7.3 days. The result is an asteroid that
travels through space tumbling like a badly thrown football. Fortunately for
asteroid-watchers, Toutatis will brighten rapidly so that by the end of
November it will become a 14.5th magnitude object in the constellation Leo,
well within reach of 8-inch or larger telescopes in the northern hemisphere.
-- Early this morning,
NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft, which has been in orbit around asteroid 433
Eros since February, swooped just 3 miles (about 5 km) over the tumbling space
rock. The elevation of the flyby was similar to the cruising altitude of a
commuter jet on Earth. No space probe has ever been so close to a minor planet.
"Although NEAR was very close to Eros -- the closest we've been before was
about 35 km in July -- the spacecraft was never in any danger," says
Andrew Cheng, the project scientist at Johns Hopkins University. "We chose
to fly over an area of the southern hemisphere where, if we were off-target,
the uneven gravity of the irregular asteroid would actually kick us back into a
higher orbit."
NASA is considering risking NEAR on a landing, something never before tried, to
get a closer view of Eros. "We're considering landing on the asteroid at
the end of NEAR's one-year mission," says Cheng. "The spacecraft
would touch down near the south pole of Eros where the rotational surface
velocity is low."
NEAR was designed to orbit Eros, not to land on it," says Cheng.
"Most of the science instruments won't even work so close to the
asteroid's surface. We want to do this as a proof of concept, to show that a
spacecraft can land on an asteroid." Future missions to explore and
possibly return samples from the minor planets will depend on maneuvers that
NEAR might soon try for the first time.
"Things could go wrong," Cheng stressed, like crashing into one of
Eros's many boulders. But if NEAR touches down without mishap and can still
communicate with Earth, scientists will enjoy a brief close-up of Eros that
will make today's flyby seem remote by comparison.
400 physics teachers from 22 European countries will gather at CERN in Geneva from 6 to 10 November to see how fascinating and entertaining physics can be. The week long event will hopefully spark new innovations in science teaching across Europe, since it is in decline as a subject - a major surprise at the start of a millenium which will almost certainly see mankind into space as a regular activity within a few years.
CERN, the European Particle Physic laboratory near Geneva,
Switzerland, will shut down the large electron positron collider which has
given hints as to the reality of the Higgs boson particle on November 2. It
will be replaced by a 17 mile circumference ring of the large hadron collider,
which will be about ten times more powerful, but which will not come on line
for five years.
The Higgs boson has proved elusive but has given coy hints as to its existence
beyond the theoretical.
The lab was also the birthplace of the internet, created by Tim Berners-Lee, a
computer scientist at Cern as a way for the physicists around the world working
on allied projects to share data.
A new model of the reasons for global warming is blaming the
sun for being too warm. ESA scientists using various data have demonstrated
that up to now the climate change models have seriously underestimated the
sun's role in planetary warmth.
Various satellite (especially SOHO) and other sources have collected data which
shows a huge surge in UV radiation from our star over the last few years,
coupled with a doubling in strength of the sun's magnetic field.
If so this would blow wide open the political reasoning behind various
greenhouse gas taxings, such as on car fuels.
A rocket designed in a shed in Pinner, northwest London, has
reached a new record height for an European amateur rocket. The Phoebus EAV
flew to nearly seven miles on Sunday, from Black Rock, in the USA's Nevada
Desert.
The rocket, which cost only £4,000 to build, more than doubled the
previous British rocket record.
Project leader is Ben Jarvis, who is a 24-year-old graphic designer. The rocket
is a two stage 12ft long and 4inch wide projectile. It reached a confirmed
altitude of 35,000ft, cruising altitude for a Boeing 747.
While the world record is still safe at 280,000 (50 miles), the rocket did
accelerate to twice the speed of sound and the team was worried it would fail
structurally.
Theoretical physicians at St Andrews University are planning to make an optical black hole in their laboratory in the Scottish seaside town, in the next few years.
World space week starts tomorrow (October 4) after a UN
declaration picked the date because it isanniversary of the launch of the first
artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 ( October 4, 1957), and to finish on the date
that the Treaty of Peaceful Uses of Outer Space entered into force in 1967.
These dates also correspond with the annual Congress of the International
Astronautical Federation. Events will be organised by governments, space
agencies, industry and educational institutions, but other groups and
individuals are encouraged to run events as well.
Website: http://www.spaceweek.org
If you want to shop early for Christmas and you are, or you know someone who is a fan of Robert Rankin, all problems are solved. Not only is Waterstone's the Piccadilly, London, bookshop, mounting an exhibition of his sculptures , but limited editions of some are available for sale.(the Bondage teapot from Snuff Fiction, the fetish teacup from Waiting for Godalming and the voodoo handbag - Dance of the Voodoo Handbag) Rankin is also touring to promote his latest book, Waiting for Godalming. Details: www.lostcarpark.com.
All spruced up and ready to go on November 1: one space
station, jointly owned and operated complete with jogging machine, vacuum
cleaners, medicine cabinet, a do-it-yourself doctor kit and enough toilet paper
to see out the most panic buying member of the UK public for about a week of a
fuel situation.
Atlantis left the ISS fully stocked and more like a suburban home from home
than any previous space habitat, ready for the first manning by a joint
Russian/American four month stay.
Also supplied were foods, radio and TV systems and even black bin liners
(though quite when the garbage is collected was not specified)
A new government report in the UK is recommending that about £25m be spent on a Spaceguard initiative to detect and monitor near Earth objects. The project, if approved would join similar initiatives in America and Japan, and supplement them. NASA is aiming to track all 1km plus objects by 2006. The UK Spaceguard would seek to detect and track smaller objects, from about 50 yards in diameter.
The space shuttle Atlantis has successfully docked with the International Space Station, in spite of a failure in a navigational system. One of the two trackers had failed but the two craft were still docked by astronaut Terrence Wilcutt, about 230 miles above Kazakhstan with both craft moving at 17,500MPH.
Astronomers have discovered a bright Near Earth Asteroid that will pass by our planet on September 17. Amateur astronomers can monitor the fast-moving space rock in 8-inch or larger telescopes.
Legal and space experts have once again denied the real estate claims of Francis Williams and Denis Hope, who between them are selling acres of land on the moon for a few dollars or pounds at a time. In return punters get a large piece of paper, but no real title - extra-terrestrial real estate is treated as is Antarctica under United Nations law, held for all humanity and not for sale.
More evidence of life on Jupiter Moon If confirmation came next year it would almost be too
perfect to contemplate, but the possibility of life of Europa, the second moon
of Jupiter has been increased after analysis of the latest data from Galileo
spacecraft.
On January 3 Galileo passed by the moon and collected more evidence that Europa
has a liquid and salty ocean beneath its ice covered surface. This makes it a
prime candidate for life, even though the temperature is -145degreesC, since
bacteria survive such conditions in the abyssal depths here on Earth. The
analysis was don e by a team from UCLA led by Margaret Kivelson
Construction of the biggest telescope in the southern
hemisphere will start next month. The 85 ton telescope takes advantage of
recent technological innovations to achieve high performance at relatively low
cost.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a truly multinational project
that will shed light upon some of the oldest questions astronomers have asked
about the age and scale of the universe, and will be able to see objects a
billion times too faint to be seen by the naked eye.
The British consortium, led by the University of Central Lancashire, includes
the Universities of Keele, Nottingham and Southampton and Armagh Observatory
and will be joining the other partners in the SALT project, from South Africa,
Poland, Germany, USA and New Zealand.
Due for completion by the end of 2004, the optical/infrared telescope dubbed
"Africa's Giant Eye" will have an eleven metre hexagonal mirror, very
similar in design to the Hobby-Ebberly Telescope (HET) in Texas, but with a
redesigned optical system using more of the mirror array. SALT is a
fixed-altitude telescope which can access 70% of the sky observable at its base
in Sutherland, South Africa.
The total building cost will be around £15 million Website:
www.salt.ac.za
Light pollution from such sources as streetlights is washing
out man's view of the stars. Astronomers at the IAU voiced concern.
'Light pollution' affects everyone, not just professional observatories. An
average person in the countryside away from city lights can see several
thousand stars in the sky. Bit by bit, Europe is losing this view of the
heavens as we add more and lamps, and waste energy by sending the light
uselessly into the sky. Thousands of millions of pounds worth of energy are
tossed upwards into the European sky each year - instead of down onto the
ground which we want to illuminate.
Dr Malcolm Smith, Director of the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in
Chile, issued this challenge. "Look around your city or town. See how many
street lamps allow plenty of light to shine upwards. Count how many stars you
can see. If you are old enough to remember how the sky looked 30 years ago,
could you see the Milky Way then? Can you now?"
Radio interference is also causing increasing difficulty. Radio astronomers
have noticed increasing problems with use of large radio telescopes. Mobile
telephones, television, satellites and airport radars are all essential to
modern life but they create a noisy radio environment that makes it very
difficult to make sensitive astronomical measurements of quasars, pulsars,
black holes and the cosmic microwave background. As an example, the tiny amount
of energy transmitted by a mobile phone could easily be picked up by the giant
250-foot radio dish at Jodrell Bank - even if the phone were on Mars!
dozens of new names have been assigned to moons and features
on moons and planets in the solar system at the IAU this week. The IAU is the
only body with authority to name astronomical bodies and features on them.
Names are confirmed every three years, at each General Assembly.
The working group for planetary system nomenclature (WGPSN, which includes the
UK astronomer and broadcaster, Dr. Patrick Moore) examines every proposal. The
committee selected the names after submissions from the discoverers,
cartographers and spaceflight engineers investigating new satellites, asteroids
and craters throughout the solar system. Along with Earth-based observatories,
space probes such as Galileo and Clementine have discovered a plethora of new
moons, craters and other features, all of which need names for the benefit of
present-day astronomers and any future explorers.
Name sources vary from Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" had already
been the inspiration for the names of some of the moons of Uranus discovered
earlier, such as Ariel and Miranda. They will now be joined by Prospero, the
magician master of the island in the play, Setebos who enslaves Ariel, and
Stephano, the ship's butler. These names replace the less interesting temporary
designations, S/1999 U3, U1 and U2 respectively. The names Caliban and Sycorax,
provisionally given to two moons of Uranus discovered in 1997, were also
formally confirmed.
In the asteroid belt, Eugenia's recently discovered satellite is named
Petit-Prince after the son of Eugenie, the empress of Napoleon III. Craters on
the dark asteroid Mathilde are named after coal basins around the world.
Nathaniel Bliss, the 4th Astronomer Royal who died after just 18 months in his
post at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich will give his name to a lunar ring
between the lunar crater Plato and Mt. Piton. Bliss, who served from 1762-1764,
was until now the only Astronomer Royal without the honour of a named body or
feature.
The late Carl Sagan, who is remembered for his contributions to planetary
research and as one of the most successful popularisers of astronomy will be
honoured with a 95-km-wide crater near the equator on the planet Mars.
Features on the near-Earth asteroid Eros, currently being observed by the
orbiting NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft, are to be named after great lovers in
history and literature. They include Cupid, Lolita and Don Quixote. Galileo,
the first astronomer to use a telescope, probably would not have approved. In
the 17th century he refused to accept the proposed names of Jupiter's largest
satellites as they commemorated the illicit lovers of Jupiter in classical
mythology.
It's all a lot older than you thought Astronomers at Durham University (UK) have found new
evidence that large numbers of galaxies were in existence at even earlier times
than previously thought. They have identified many galaxies with redshifts
between 4 and 6. This means they were already in existence about 10 billion
years ago, when the universe was six times smaller than it is now. With this
discovery, researchers may have to rethink their ideas about how galaxies
formed. The work was presented by Dr Tom Shanks at a symposium at the IAU this
week.
New red and infra-red pictures have been taken of small areas of the sky
already targeted by the deepest ultraviolet and blue surveys. The new images
extend the search for galaxies to higher redshifts than every before.
Surprisingly, the new results show such large numbers of galaxies that there
seems to be almost as many bright galaxies with redshifts of 5 as there are at
low redshifts nearby. This makes the epoch of galaxy formation earlier in the
history of the universe than astronomers previously thought. redshifts of 5 to
6. There are as many galaxies at these high redshifts as are found locally.
Dr Shanks said "Four years ago, we described the galaxies we found withThe
ion propulsion engine on Deep Space 1 has now accumulated more operating time
in space than any other propulsion system in the history of the space
program," said John Brophy, manager of the NASA Solar Electric Propulsion
Technology Applications Readiness project, at the agency's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. redshifts of 2 as being at 'The Final
Frontier' because we thought that just beyond them we might be looking back to
a time before galaxies formed. Now that large numbers of galaxies at even
higher redshifts have been found, we feel entitled to describe them as being
Beyond the Final Frontier!".
Website: http://star-www.dur.ac.uk/cosmology/pressrelease.html
The ion propulsion engine on Deep Space 1 has now
accumulated more operating time in space than any other propulsion system in
the history of the space program," said John Brophy, manager of the NASA
Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Applications Readiness project, at the
agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, USA. NASA's
DS1 probe, currently heading for an encounter with Comet Borrelly, has run its
unique propulsion system for more than 200 days (4,800 hours) -- longer and
more efficiently than anything ever launched.
The almost imperceptible thrust from the system is equivalent to the pressure
exerted by a sheet of paper held in the palm of your hand. The ion engine is
very slow to pick up speed, but over the long haul it can deliver 10 times as
much thrust per pound of fuel as more traditional rockets.
If you are a writer, an author, a small press publisher or
run a literary zine, the writers' site Quantum Muse wants you to join their new
literary web ring, Drinkers with a Writing Problem. To sign up for this new
ring, go to
http://www.quantummuse.com/writedrink.html
http://www.quantummuse.com/
The traffic on Mars is expected to double in the near future. NASA today announced plans to launch two large scientific rovers to the red planet in 2003, rather than the original plan for just one.
SOLAR ACTIVITY:The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded a full-halo coronal mass ejection today from sunspot group 9114, near the center of the Sun's visible disk. Material from the eruption could trigger geomagnetic activity when it arrives in the vicinity of Earth in about three days. |
 |
The second pair of Cluster satellites are now safely in
separation orbit around the Earth after Wednesday's successful launch from
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, via a Soyuz-Fregat launch vehicle provided
by the French-Russian Starsem consortium..
"This second perfect launch within less than four weeks means that Cluster
is on track for a highly successful mission," said Professor Roger-Maurice
Bonnet, ESA science director. "We are now looking forward to receiving the
unique three-dimensional data that will give new understanding of the
interaction between the Sun and Earth."
Over the next week, Rumba and Tango will participate in a complex series of
orbital manoeuvres in order to rendezvous with the other spacecraft in the
Cluster flotilla (Salsa and Samba).
The quartet will then undergo three months of instrument and system
commissioning before beginning their two-year scientific mission.
The Perseid meteor shower peaks tomorrow (August 12,) This year the bright, nearly-full Moon will outshine the Perseids most of the night, but for an hour between moonset and sunrise on Saturday morning, star gazers could witness a brief but beautiful meteor shower. The setting Moon may put on a show of its own Saturday. Wildfires and dust storms have filled parts of our atmosphere with aerosols. A low-hanging Moon seen through such dusty air can take on a beautiful pink or orange hue.
Leading astronomers from Europe, North America, Asia and
Australia have signed an agreement jointly to plan a huge new radiotelescope,
the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will come into operation in the middle
of the next decade. It will be a uniquely sensitive instrument with a
collecting area will be almost 100 times larger than today's biggest radio
imaging telescope and 200 times larger than the pioneering Lovell Telescope,
which is in day-to-day operation at the Manchester University's Jodrell Bank
Observatory.
The idea of the SKA sprang from astronomers' desire to detect the faint
emission from hydrogen gas in structures forming soon after the Big Bang, and
in the galaxies which developed from these structures. Hydrogen is the
commonest constituent of the Universe and, as University of Manchester
Professor Peter Wilkinson says: "One square kilometre is not just a
convenient round number - it arises naturally from a desire to image the
hydrogen gas in very distant galaxies".
. 2000 astronomers are still meeting in Manchester UK for the International Astronomical Union meeting, to discuss the latest theories and observations, plan the business, politics and organisation of Astronomy and set the scientific agenda for this most ancient of sciences as the 21st century opens. This is a big event in world science. Attendance cost £240 to non-members. The 'Final Programme' runs to 100+ pages, the WWW version is over 325 kb when downloaded and is not full of images. Find it at http://www.iau.org/ga24.html
The Institute of Physics and Nature (MacMillans) are publishing The Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics 2500 pages and 4 volumes in print (£450) but also on-line (£300). See www.macmillan-reference.co.uk/astro/gateway.htm. for ample chapters and content.
Distance learning courses via Jodrell Bank observatory. Introduction to Radio Astronomy... learn about the science of radio astronomy. The course covers an introduction to radio telescopes and receivers and to the astronomical sources of radio waves including stars, pulsars and distant galaxies. The course also includes an opportunity to visit Jodrell Bank, use a radio telescope, and make your own observations of astronomical radio sources. See www.jb.man.ac.uk/distance All for £100 but for £150 you can distance learn Life in the
Anyone really can do it Jeffrey Larsen, principal research specialist with the
Spacewatch group at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in
Tucson, and his undergraduate students recently used the 80-year-old, 36-inch
Spacewatch telescope on Kitt Peak to discover dim Centaur asteroids and
Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs).
Centaurs orbit between Jupiter and Neptune, typically 5 to 30 astronomical
units away. "Their orbits are very elliptical and cross the orbits of
these planets, so if anybody lived on Jupiter these objects would be as close
as Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are to Earth," Larsen explains.
"Centaurs also seem to be related to comets. From the point of view of
their orbits, you cannot tell the difference between the two. Comets get comas
and tails as they get closer to the sun, Centaurs never do."
Trans-Neptunian Objects are even more remote. They circle the sun at a distance
of at least 38 AU in circular orbits comparable with Pluto's orbit.. Larsen and
his students looked 20 degrees above and below the plane of the ecliptic During
Spacewatch observations May through August 1999, Nichole Danzl, Arianna
Gleason, and graduate student Anne Descour discovered five TNOs, three Centaurs
and two 'scattered disc objects'. These asteroids wander between 40 and 150 AU,
or farther away than Pluto.
To complicate the matter even more, the team also discovered two asteroids that
met both criteria - they crossed planetary orbits like Centaurs and wandered
far away from the solar system like scattered disc objects. Based on these two
discoveries, the Centaurs and scattered disc objects are now considered a
single class of asteroids.
Over the past decade, planetary astronomers have begun to explore the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt of comets and "ice dwarf" worlds near the edge of the solar system. "This region is planetary science's equivalent of an archeological dig into the history of the ancient outer solar system," he reports. Stern, a planetary astronomer, is director of the SwRI Space Studies Department in Boulder. The Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, first discussed in the 1940s and early 1950s by British astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth and Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, was discovered by telescope in 1992. Since then, more than 300objects have been detected in this disk-like ensemble of comets and larger objects beginning just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Current estimates, based on the number of objects discovered to date and the fraction of sky surveyed in those searches, indicate that at least 100,000 miniature icy worlds and more than one billion icy comets dot this region.
Sir Alec GuinnessFTL notes with sadness the death of Sir Alec Guinness at the weekend. Sir Alec was 86 and his CV as an actor stretched across many media and decades as well as different forms of drama, from comedy - such as the seminal Ealing classic film Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different roles to TV drama such as Smiley's People. He had a long and successful career on the stage also. Perhaps his most lucrative role, and one for which he was known the world over came in his 60s as Obi Wan Kanobi, Jedi Master, in the first set of three Star Wars films. He was bemused totally by his international fame from the roles - but they made him rich, since he was on a percentage. Sir Alec had won two oscars during his career as well as many other roles. |
 |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a small armada
of "mini-comets" left behind by what seemed to be a total
disintegration of comet Linear.
On July 27, ground-based observers lost sight of the bright core of the comet
and suggested that the nucleus disintegrated into a pile of dust. Astronomers
at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) reprogrammed Hubble to search
for the missing nucleus. Johns Hopkins University astronomer Hal Weaver said he
was stunned when the Hubble image popped up on his computer screen. " On
Weaver's screen were at least a half dozen "mini-comets" with tails,
resembling the shower of glowing fireballs from fireworks. They were clustered
in the lance-head tip of an elongated stream of dust. An isolated brighter
piece in front of the cluster may be the parent nucleus for the smaller
fragments. Hubble's exceptional resolution and sensitivity allowed it to reveal
the nuclei as separated bodies at a level of detail never before seen in a
disintegrating comet.
Astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin's
McDonald Observatory and other members of an international planetary research
team have discovered a new planet in a solar system only 10.5 light-years away
from Earth. The planet, which is composed of gas, is orbiting a star called
Epsilon Eridani. Epsilon Eridani is the fifth brightest star in the
constellation Eridanus.
Dr. William D. Cochran, a research scientist with McDonald and UT Austin's
Department of Astronomy, will present the planetary search team's findings at a
symposium on "Planetary Systems in the Universe," as part of the 24th
General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Manchester,
England, this week.
"Detecting a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani -- a star very similar to our
own Sun and only 3.22 parsecs from Earth -- is like finding a planet in our own
backyard, relatively speaking," said Cochran. "Not only is this
planet nearby, it lies 478 million kilometers (or 297 million miles) from its
central star -- roughly the distance from the Sun to the asteroid belt in our
own solar system."
The new-found planet's mass is estimated somewhere between 0.8 times the mass
of Jupiter and 1.6 times the mass of Jupiter, Cochran said. Its orbit lasts
just under seven years -- about 60 percent the orbital period of Jupiter but
longer than that of most other recently discovered planets. Astronomers are
excited about the new planet's rough similarity to Jupiter, because
astrobiologists believe Jupiter played an important role in the development of
life on Earth. The largest planet in the solar system and the fifth planet from
the Sun, Jupiter is a massive ball of gas. It exerts such a strong
gravitational pull that it is believed to serve as a protective barrier,
generally preventing asteroids and meteorites from crashing down on Earth.
"The exciting thing about this discovery is that having a large planet
orbiting fairly far out from Epsilon Eridani means there could be room for
Earth-like planets in a reasonably stable orbit closer into the star,"
Cochran said. "All the planets found so far that are the size of Jupiter
are much closer to the parent star. It means there could be room for an
Earth-like planet closer to Epsilon Eridani and -- perhaps -- in a habitable
zone."
In contrast to Jupiter, however, Cochran said this particular planet's orbit is
highly eccentric and elliptical. The orbits of Earth and its eight immediate
neighbors are more circular. Stable orbits also are considered of crucial
importance in the development of life. Still, Cochran said, the discovery of
the new planet circling Epsilon Eridani raises the tantalizing possibility of
detecting planets with longer orbital periods and of detecting multiplanet
systems like the solar system. Epsilon Eridani is located in one of the 10
nearest star systems and is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.
"You can go outside at night, even in Austin, and point at it and say that
star there has a planet around it," Cochran said. The planet has not been
named because at present there is no accepted agreement on naming planets.
A University of Colorado at Boulder professor and several
colleagues have identified what is believed to be the youngest massive star
cluster yet detected in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Known as W49, the cluster appears to contain about 100 type O stars - the
hottest and most massive stars in our galaxy -- that are estimated be less than
1 million years old. The cluster also is thought to be peppered with thousands
of lower mass, lower luminosity stars.
"These massive type O stars are in the birthing process," said
Professor Peter Conti of CU-Boulder's astrophysical and planetary sciences
department. "Ten to 100 of the type O stars would be a very luminous
ensemble easily visible across the galaxy were it not for the absorption of
optical light by dust in the Milky Way."
Britney Spears may appear in an episode of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer next season as she and Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar are good
friends, and she loves the show and wants to do an episode.
Also in the next season, Buffy will discover she has a younger sister (as you
do)and Buffy will travel to England to persuade the Watcher's Council to allow
Giles to resume duties as her watcher.
The United Kingdom will welcome the world's top astronomers next week, when it hosts the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly. This isthe first time in 30 years that the conference has been held in the UK, and will bring about 2000 astronomers, from 87 countries, to the University of Manchester (home of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope) for two weeks. The assembly will feature almost 500 talks, on subjects as diverse as searching for planets outside our solar system, the effects of the Sun's activity on Earth's environment, space exploration and the structure and creation of the Universe.
Gillian Anderson has extended her contract to play FBI Agent Dana Scully for at least another season, taking her commitment to the X-Files as far as the ninth season. David Duchovny has cut by half the number of episodes in which he will appear next season, to be replaced by Robert Patrick who will play a new character, Agent John Doggett.
The Sun's brightness has been increasing steadily for the
past three years, will peak this year and then diminish..
In an invited talk on Monday August 7 at the International Astronomical Union's
General Assembly in Manchester (UK), Dr Judith Lean of the Naval Research
Laboratory in Washington DC will explain how high precision instruments on
board spacecraft have been monitoring the Sun since 1984 for the slightest
changes. Building up a detailed picture of how the Sun's output varies over
time will help determine how much (if any) of the global warming presently
affecting the Earth is caused by long-term changes to the Sun.
Astronomers at ground-based observatories have studied the Sun's activity for
the past 400 years by counting the number of dark sunspots on its disk. Their
records reveal a repeating cycle in which the numbers of sunspots hits a
maximum approximately every 11 years. The two most recent cycles completed
(identified as cycles nos. 21 and 22, corresponding roughly to 1974-85 and
1985-96), turned out to have two of the three highest peaks of activity ever
recorded.
Since 1997 we have been in solar cycle number 23. The Sun's activity and
brightness has increased steadily. Now, near the predicted time of maximum,
levels of radiation are 0.06% higher than in 1996. However, in 1990 - the same
stage of the last cycle - the rise had been 0.09%. Dr Lean said, "Levels
of solar radiation appear not to have reached those seen in the two previous
cycles. The consensus drawn from long-term observations in space, and
independent calculations is that the increase will likely be about 30% less
during the present activity cycle than during the peaks of two prior
cycles."
Astronomers around the world are monitoring the unexpected
disintegration of this year's major comet, Linear. Intense solar heating
apparently triggered a massive disruption of the comet's fragile icy core when
it passed close to the Sun last week. It is still bright enough to see through
small telescopes although it is expected to disintegrate totally in the next
few days. The break up of a bright comet is unusual but not unprecedented.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up before it struck Jupiter in 1994. SL-9 was
discovered only after it fragmented, but with Linear astronomers have been able
to watch the whole process in more detail than with any other comet.(West in
1976, Ikeya-Seki in 1965 for eg). Mark Kidger, an astronomer at the Instituto
de Astrofisica de Canarias said 'This comet's demise seems to be a bit unusual.
Cometary splittings rarely ever lead to the rapid disappearance of a comet like
this - in fact, I don't know of another case'.
Kidger was the first to notice Linear disintegrating as he monitored a cloud of
gas surrounding its core using the 1-meter Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope. Linear,
which has been falling toward the Sun since it was discovered in September last
year, made its closest approach to our star (perihelion) on July 26, 2000.
Perihelion is a critical time for any comet. It's when solar heating of the icy
core is most intense and when the comet swings around for its long return trip
to the outer solar system.
Something was already amiss the day before Comet LINEAR reached perihelion at a
distance of 114 million km (0.74 AU) from the Sun.
The very first images on July 25 were enough to show me that something odd was
going on' said Dr Kidger. 'The comet's inner coma was no longer teardrop-shaped
(the solar wind flowing around the comet's head causes this shape). It had a
shape like a short, fat cigar. My first thought was 'Shoemaker-Levy.' It looked
just like it'.
Unlike Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke into many well-defined bright fragments,
Linear seems to be dissolving into an amorphous haze of gas and dust.
The world-famous Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank
Observatory, University of Manchester, has discovered a pulsar that is
wobbling, giving astronomers a glimpse into the interior of a neutron star.
A pulsar is a neutron star, the extremely dense remnant of a massive normal
star that has undergone a supernova explosion. A neutron star is typically 20
km in diameter, about the size of a city, weighs a million times the mass of
the Earth, and spins as fast as a top, with predictable regularity. A pulsar
produces beams of radio emission above its magnetic poles, and these sweep like
lighthouse beams across the sky. When a beam crosses the Earth,radio telescopes
receive a periodic "pulse" of radiation with a characteristic shape.
The Jodrell Bank scientists (Ingrid Stairs, Andrew Lyne and Setnam Shemar) have
been studying 13 years' worth of data from the pulsar PSR B1828-11. This pulsar
rotates 2.5 times per second, but, unlike any other, wobbles regularly with a
period of about 1000 days. The motion is very much like the wobble of a top or
gyroscope; its effects are shown in an illustration and animation at
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/news/neutronstar/. This wobble, or precession, has two
manifestations: it causes the observed pulse to change its shape, and causes
the time between pulses to vary, becoming sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.
In an article to appear in today's issue of Nature, the Manchester astronomers
argue these variations imply that the neutron star, instead of being perfectly
spherical, is slightly squashed. Stairs explains: "The bulge in the
neutron star causes the angle between the pulsar's rotation axis and its radio
beam to change with time, creating the wobbling effect that we measure."
Lyne emphasizes that the bulge is incredibly small: "This star departs
from being a perfect sphere by only 0.1 mm in 20 km. On Earth this would mean
that no mountain could be higher than 3 cm!"
The surprising aspect to the discovery is not the small size of the wobble, but
that fact that it is seen at all. Astronomers know from other long-term
observations, mostly done at Jodrell Bank, that a pulsar is made up largely of
a neutron superfluid, with a solid crust. Current theories predict that the
interaction between the superfluid and the crust should cause any precession to
die out extremely quickly. "But this pulsar is one hundred thousand years
old, and it's still wobbling!" exclaims Lyne. "We really don't
understand how this precession can be happening, and theorists are going to
have to do some work to explain it," adds Stairs.
A web-based version of this press release including the illustration and an
animation can be found at
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/news/neutronstar/
An image of the 76m Lovell Telescope can be found at:
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/research/seti/Lovell.jpg
An illustrated overview of the work of the Jodrell Bank Observatory can be seen
on the World-Wide-Web at:
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk
The 10 billion billion billion megaton
bomb Astronomers at the University of Southampton in the UK have
found a star that will produce one of the biggest explosions in our Universe.
The star, known as KPD1930+2752, will explode within the next 200 million
years. It is the first star of its kind to be found and may hold the clues to
where the stuff that makes up our bodies comes from and perhaps to the future
of the Universe itself.
KPD1930+2752 is actually two stars, one hot bright star and a faint, dense star
known as a white dwarf. The hot star whirls around the white dwarf, just like
the Earth revolves around the Sun, but travelling at over one million
kilometers per hour, it takes only 137 minutes to complete one trip around its
companion.
But KPD1930+2752 is doomed. Energy is being sucked away by 'gravitational
waves' - a type of energy predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity-
so the stars will collide within the next 200 million years. What makes
KPD1930+2752 special is that the star will then be too massive and dense to
survive. The star will be ripped apart in a vast thermonuclear explosion bright
enough to be seen from the other side of the Universe.
These explosions, known as Type Ia Supernovae, hurl their metallic debris into
space, particularly iron, nickel and cobalt. Almost all the iron on Earth comes
from Type Ia Supernovae which exploded billions of years ago - including the
iron in our blood.
Now that KPD1930+2752 has been found it can be studied in detail so that
astronomers can work out how Type Ia Supernovae in distant galaxies might
behave and so, perhaps, determine the fate of the Universe itself.
More details:The Royal Observatory Greenwich
(www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/supernovae/supernovae.html) .
Your home computer can become a portal to a wonderland of
stars, thanks to a massive release of images from an infrared sky survey
sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
"Any computer with a web browser can be transformed into a desktop
observatory," said Dr. Michael Skrutskie, of the University of
Massachusetts, principal investigator of the sky survey,2MASS (two micron all
sky survey) has produced an online image collection of half a million galaxies
and 162 million stars visible to infrared.
The 2MASS survey uses two highly automated, 51-inch (1.3-meter) diameter
telescopes, one at Mount Hopkins, Arizona., the other at the National Science
Foundation's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile. Work on the survey
started in 1997. Its catalogs will contain more than 300 million objects by the
time observations are concluded next year.
More details
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast20jul_1.htm?list
Jodrell Bank under threatThe world-famous Jodrell Bank telescope is under threat in a
cost-cutting exercise by the UK government, after the funding body stated that
it wanted to go to funding co-governmental projects such as the European
Southern Observatory in future. |
 |
The first two cluster satellites were put into orbit form
the Baikonur Cosmodrome yesterday (Sunday) by Soyuz rocket. The Soyuz put the
first two of four satellites in a parking orbit at 240 km - 18,000 km which
will finally allow them to fly in formation in a triangular pyramid long orbit
a third of the way to the Moon.
They will study space weather and how solar particles penetrate the Earth's
magnetic shield. The ground station is at Kiruna, Sweden, and it has
successfully acquired the two spacecraft and started to receive telemetry,
confirming that the satellites have successfully separated from the
Soyuz-Fregat and that they are now flying independently.
The four satellites were named rumba, salsa, samba and tango in a competition
which attracted more than 5,000 entries from all 15 ESA member states. The
winning entry came from Raymond Cotton of Bristol, who suggested the names of
four dances - "We thought of these because my wife and I both like
ballroom dancing, and they seemed to fit with the movement of the satellites
through space," he said. "The names are also international and will
be recognised in any country."
The second pair of Cluster spacecraft is scheduled for launch on 9 August.
In another scientific discovery which lends credence to the
arguments that life is possible on other planets, British biologists have found
what they believe to be the world's oldest living creature, a microbe which may
be 260m years old.
The bacterium has been discovered in salt deposits deep under Cleveland, ub the
north-eastern UK. The salt and the microbes were left behind when shallow
primordial seas evaporated and the trapped bugs seem to have evolved to cope
with the concentrated saline environment with no food by slowing their
metabolism to a rate which is almost undetectable. The deposits, similar to
ones also found by Bill Grant, professor of microbiology and immunology at
Leicester University, in Thailand and Poland, but these, in a salt mine under
Boulby, near Redcar.
The lack of any really powerful activity is space exploration or travel in the UK is sapping the calibre of science and engineering graduates as any programme within the country is limited in ambition according to the all-party Commons trade and Industry Select Committee, which has just commented on the government's space strategy document, published last year. The committee said that spending was dropping in real terms.
A Russian Proton rocket successfully put a major part of the ISS into orbit yesterday. Launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome the rocket launched the living quarters, flight control systems and a German built supercomputer which are all vital to the habitability of the station. Called Zvezda (Star), the module cost $320m and is 43 ft long. It is due to be automatically docked with the main parts of the ISS in a fortnight, but if this fails a crew is standing by to enable manned docking.
Reports filtering through that the story for the next Trek
film (the tenth) is completed and work on selecting a writer and firming up
cast etc is underway, for an autumn of next year release.
Meanwhile plans are already ongoing for a ship-based new TV series, to take
over the franchise flag once Voyager gets home next year.
Voyager captain Kate Mulgrew intends to return to the stage having seen her
crew back to Earth.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has picked up the first-ever
observed flare from a brown dwarf, or failed star.
In the July 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters,a paper by Dr. Robert
Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, CA
includes the comment "We didn't expect to see flaring from such a
lightweight object. This is really the mouse that roared."
The study of the bright X-ray flare will increase understanding of the
explosive activity and origin of magnetic fields of extremely low-mass stars.
Chandra detected no X-rays at all from the object called LP 944-20 for the
first nine hours of a twelve-hour observation, and then the source flared
dramatically before it faded away over the next two hours. The energy emitted
in the brown dwarf flare was comparable to a small solar flare, and was a
billion times greater than observed X-ray flares from Jupiter. The flaring
energy is believed to come from a twisted magnetic field. "This is the
strongest evidence yet that brown dwarfs and possibly young giant planets have
magnetic fields, and that a large amount of energy can be released in a
flare," said Dr. Eduardo Martin, also of Caltech and a member of the team.
Amateur rocket scientist Steve Bennett yesterday fired off
another successful Starchaser rocket - Starchaser Discovery, the most powerful
reusable research rocket built and flown over Europe over Morecambe Bay in
North West Britain. Powered by six motors, providing four tonnes of thrust, the
220lb rocket accelerated to 700 mph in three seconds and went to 19,000 feet.
Bennett lectures in space technology at Salford University (Manchester area)
and the university supplied the computing and telemetry hard and software. Now
he is moving on to start design work on a manned craft, called Nova.
Simple then, hook your computer to:
http://sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov/discovery2.html
Or have a look at
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images
For all the info on finding comets a-plenty - and if you do as a result of
reading this here - please let the editor know so that she can be smug about
that too.
Later this month a fuzzy blob will glide
across the sky near the Big Dipper. Called "C/1999 LINEAR S4", or
LINEAR-S4 for short, it's the brightest comet to come along in more than three
years. Comet LINEAR-S4 was discovered on September 27, 1999, by the Lincoln
Near-Earth Asteroid Research program in New Mexico. It appears to be a
first-time visitor to the inner solar system traveling in that will return it
beyond distant Pluto after it passes 114 million km from the Sun on July 26,
2000. Comet LINEAR-S4 could be a beautiful sight as it moves through the
relatively star-poor area around the Big Dipper in late July. In fact, if the
comet reaches 4th magnitude it will probably resemble another popular fuzzy
blob, our nearest neighboring galaxy, the Andromeda Nebula. Experts stress that
predicting what LINEAR-S4 will do is more of an art than hard science. The
comet might fail to develop or it could be far more striking than expected.
"Estimating how bright this comet will become is tricky," says an
astronomer at the NASA Marshal l Space Flight Center. "Comet LINEAR hasn't
been here before so we can't use past experience as a guide."
LINEAR-S4 is expected to become a naked-eye object around July 17, when it
brightens to 6th magnitude. Even if the comet eventually reaches 4th magnitude,
it will be invisible in light polluted urban areas. Dark skies are essential.
Top astronomers from all over the world will converge on
Manchester between the 7th and the 18th of August for the 24th General Assembly
of the International Astronomical Union, a two-week programme covering
everything astronomical from the Sun to the edge of the observable universe.
There will be about 2000 participants, almost 500 talks and 600 poster
presentations. Programme details available at
http://www.iau.org/ga24.html
Michael Oates, of Radcliffe, Manchester, in the middle of
England, is probably the most prolific comet spotter ever. Michael, who uses
his home PC to analyse pictures from space observatories downloaded from the
Net, has spotted 39 new comets in less than six months.
Astronomers using telescopes are lucky to spot one in a lifetime of watching,
but Michael identified the first within his first week of looking at the images
and recently spotted seven within 24 hours.
He is a member of Manchester Astronomical Society and runs an electrical
business.
Nasa scientists gathered in
Pasadena, California, USA to share ideas and present new information about
solar sails at the 11th annual Advanced Space Propulsion Research Workshop at
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
"Our goal is to perform a flight demonstration of a solar sail," said
Sarah Gavit, program manager for JPL's Solar Sail Technology Program
"We're hoping we could do a flight demo in 2005 to prepare for the
Interstellar Probe, a sail-propelled craft that's slated for launch about five
years later." The goal of the Interstellar Probe is to travel beyond the
nine known planets. Nearly half a kilometre wide, the Interstellar Probe's
delicate solar sail would be unfurled in space. Continuous pressure from
sunlight would ultimately accelerate the craft to speeds about five times
higher than possible with conventional rockets -- without requiring any fuel!
Zooming toward the stars at 90 km per second, it could cover the distance from
New York to Los Angeles in less than a minute. That's more than 10 times faster
than the Space Shuttle's on-orbit speed of 8 km per second. An interstellar
probe launched in 2010 would pass the Voyager 1 spacecraft, the most distant
spacecraft bound for interstellar space, in 2018 going as far in eight years as
Voyager will have journeyed in 41 years. The propulsive force for a solar sail
arises from the pressure of photons (light) from the Sun or from lasers.
Sunlight at 1 Astronomical Unit (1 AU is Earth's distance from the sun=150
million km or 93 million miles) exerts a force of 9 Newtons per square
kilometer (0.78 pounds per square mile) on a solar sail.
Water on Mars Water run-off channels have been identified in the latest
Mars Global Surveyor pictures analysed by Nasa.
Recent (in geological terms) asteroid impact craters show the channels heading
steeply downhill on the inside walls.
The theory is that impact went below the hidden water table and dislodged some,
with consequent spillage.
The main site is the canyon called Valles Marineris, 3,700 miles long, on the
Martian equator. This now becomes the prime site for any manned exploration.
Seasons change for ErosWhen NASA's NEAR spacecraft entered orbit around the asteroid Eros in February 2000, the asteroid was in the middle of northern summer. Its north pole was constantly bathed in sunlight while southern regions were in total darkness. Three of NEAR's scientific instruments depend on reflected sunlight to do their jobs, so many of the mission's early results have focused on observations of the space rock's northern parts. On June 25, the subsolar point on Eros will cross the asteroid's equator heading south. As the Sun rises over Eros's south pole, sunlight will illuminate terrain that's been hidden from view since NEAR went into orbit four months ago. "We're looking forward to seeing the south polar region of Eros for the first time," says Andrew Cheng, the lead scientist for the NEAR mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "Once the Sun rises over the south pole, the oblique lighting there will highlight features on the surface, which is ideal for taking pictures." Seasons on Eros are truly alien. They last different lengths of time (northern spring is only half as long as autumn) while the apparent size of the Sun nearly doubles between fall and spring. |
 Eros recorded by NEAR on May 18 spans about 0.8 miles and reveals features as small as 13 feet across.The jagged-looking boulder near the picture centre is over 190 feet tall. |
 Eros is elongated like a peanut. It rotates every 5.27 hours around an axis that goes through the narrow part of the asteroid. Thus, the "north pole" is near the middle and the "equator" traces Eros's long, irregular circumference. The images that make up this animated gif show the northern "hemisphere" of Eros during its summer. |
The Moon's gravity imparts tremendous energy to the Earth,
raising tides and affecting ocean temperature and weather. Richard Ray at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, and Gary Egbert of the College of Oceanic
and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, studied six years of
altimeter data from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite and concluded that about 1
trillion watts, or 25 to 30 percent of the total tidal energy dissipation,
occurs in the deep ocean. The remainder occurs in shallow seas, such as the
continental shelf off the southeast coast of South America.
"By measuring sea depths, our knowledge of the tides in the global ocean
has been remarkably improved," said Ray. The accuracies are now so high
that these data can be used to map empirically the tidal energy dissipation.
The deep-water tidal dissipation occurs generally near rugged bottom topography
(seamountains and mid-ocean ridges).
"The observed pattern of deep-ocean dissipation is consistent with
topographic scattering of tidal energy into internal motions within the water
column, resulting in localised turbulence and mixing," explained Egbert.
One important implication of this finding concerns the possible energy sources
needed to maintain the ocean's large-scale "conveyor-belt"
circulation and to mix upper ocean heat into the abyssal depths. It is thought
that 2 terawatts (2 trillion watts) are required for this process. The winds
supply about 1 terawatt, and there has been speculation that the tides, by
pumping energy into vertical water motions, supply the remainder. However, all
current general circulation models of the oceans ignore the tides. "It is
possible that properly accounting for tidally induced ocean mixing may have
important implications for long-term climate modelling," Egbert said.
In the past, most geophysical theories held that the only significant tidal
energy sink was bottom friction in shallow seas. Egbert and Ray find that this
sink is indeed dominant, but it is not the whole story. There had always been
suggestive evidence that tidal energy is also dissipated in the open ocean to
create internal waves, but published estimates of this effect varied widely and
had met with no general consensus before Topex/Poseidon.
American scientists are claiming to have broken through the
light speed barrier. Particle physicists at the NEC research institute in
Princeton say that they have accelerated light pulses up to 300 times normal
velocity of 186,000 miles per second.
This means that to all practical purposes the light will arrive before it has
left. The work was led by Dr Lijun Wang, who transmitted a pulse of light
towards a chamber filled with specially treated caesium gas.
Before the pulse had fully entered the chamber it had gone right through it and
travelled a further 60ft across the laboratory, so that it was, in effect, in
two places at once.
The claim is stirring up physics around the world since the work seems to
breach a fundamental principle - that of cause and effect, since information
could be encoded into light, and if the encoded light can travel forward in
time then the effect would come before the cause. Also demolished would be
Einstein's theory of relatively since it depends in part on the inviolability
of the speed of light.
While some physicists are sceptical, in Italy another group of physicists has
announced that they have made microwaves travel at 25% above light speed at the
Italian National Research Council.
Home | Editor's Diary | Data Bank | Picture Gallery | Read Out | Features | Products | Events | Communications Bank | Archive
Data Bank 
First total eclipse of the Millenium 
MBE is Go
Lyrid 
New Nova 
One of the
most intense annual meteor showers, the Quadrantids, will peak over North
America on January 3, 2001. Observers in western parts of Canada, the USA and
Mexico could see an impressive outburst of shooting stars, numbering as many as
100 per hour.