From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4@msn.com)
Date: Sat Jul 13 2002 - 07:28:05 PDT
----- Original Message -----
From: bulletins@SkyandTelescope.com
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 7:42 PM
To: ljk4@msn.com
Subject: S&T's Weekly News Bulletin for July 12th
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* * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - July 12, 2002 * * * *
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Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin, sponsored this week by the Rolex
Awards for Enterprise.
Established to foster a spirit of enterprise, the Rolex Awards provide
visionary individuals with the means to turn their ideas into reality. Men
and women of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds are invited to submit
projects that will have a positive impact on the world and our
understanding of it. Five winners will receive financial support to
implement their endeavours. For more information, please visit:
> http://www.rolexawards.com/news/home.jsp?news=home17
=========================================================================
PANEL AIRS NEXT STEPS FOR IMPACT PROTECTION
In the race to find all the interplanetary bodies that threaten Earth,
astronomers have tallied more than 600 asteroids with estimated diameters
of at least 1 kilometer. However, as several participants noted during a
"space roundtable" held July 10th in Washington, D.C., governments should
be doing more to find these and other near-Earth objects (NEOs). Titled
"The Asteroid Threat: Identification and Mitigation Strategies," the
roundtable was organized by ProSpace and the Space Frontier Foundation.
Colleen N. Hartman, NASA's director of solar-system exploration, noted
that the space agency funds ground-based searches at roughly $4 million
annually toward its goal of finding 90 percent of large near-Earth
asteroids by 2008. But Brian G. Marsden (Minor Planet Center) expressed
concern that the projected total of such objects -- currently near
1,200 -- may be higher than thought. He explains that when the telescopic
census nears completion the discovery rate should start to tail off. Yet
astronomers continue to find about 100 kilometer-size objects per year,
with no sign of letting up....
"We're at the point of needing to move away from an ad hoc response," says
aerospace engineer Warren Greczyn. He notes that the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics recommends the formation of a top-level
interagency group to advise the government on planetary-defense issues.
Rick Tumlinson, president of the Space Frontier Foundation, adds that such
oversight might well be integrated into proposals for a U.S. Department of
Homeland Defense. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who chairs the House
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, likes the idea of utilizing
military-derived technology to hunt down threatening NEOs. "The potential
danger from global warming," he submits, "is nothing compared to the
potential danger from near-Earth objects."
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_663_1.asp
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REVIEW BOARD ENDORSES PLUTO-KUIPER MISSION
After a year-long study, a National Research Council panel has concluded
that sending a spacecraft to several bodies in the Kuiper Belt, including
Pluto, should be NASA's highest solar-system priority in the coming
decade. The NRC study, conducted by 60 top U.S. planetary scientists and
released Thursday, also endorses a Europa Geophysical Explorer (EGE)
mission to place a craft in orbit around Jupiter's enigmatic icy moon
Europa, as well as several other missions. But the survey committee made
it clear that the Kuiper-Pluto mission's technical feasibility and lower
cost give it "clear advantages over EGE."
The study's recommendations come as a welcome surprise to the team working
on the New Horizons mission, which could be launched as early as 2006 and
reach Pluto and Charon (its moon) by 2016. "This is great news," says S.
Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator. "I've lost a lot of
sleep this past week." Edward J. Weiler, NASA's associate administrator
for space science, has stated that the space agency could not commit to a
Pluto-Kuiper effort unless the planetary-science community backed it. The
Bush administration excluded New Horizons from NASA's fiscal 2002 budget,
but Congress later authorized $30 million to begin its development. Nor
was it included in the president's fiscal 2003 budget, though Congress may
opt to fund the mission anyway.
"Given the scientific value and the unique timing, we would be missing an
historic opportunity if we don't move forward with this project and make
this mission a reality," comments Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (Maryland), who
chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee responsible for NASA. "I
intend to restore funding again this year, despite NASA's failure to
include money for Pluto in the FY03 budget...."
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_662_1.asp
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U.K. JOINS EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY SUPER-CLUB
In a significant milestone for U.K. and European astronomers, on Monday
Britain was welcomed as the 10th member of the European Southern
Observatory during a historic meeting of the ESO Council in London. This
means British astronomers will shortly have access to some of the world's
finest instruments, including the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Cerro
Paranal in the Chilean Atacama desert, complementing their share in
existing resources such as the 8-meter Gemini North telescope in Hawaii
and its twin, Gemini South, in Chile.
But all this comes at a price. Britain's membership fee in ESO will
consist of approximately £50m ($75m), with an additional £30m ($45m) as
"in-kind" contributions. For the latter, Great Britain will turn over its
4-meter Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope (VISTA) to Paranal
Observatory when it comes online in 2006 and meanwhile will supply survey
data from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope's (UKIRT) Wide Field
Camera (WFCAM). Observations from VISTA will eventually be part of an
e-Science program valued at approximately £7.6m.
Then there is the matter of the £12m ($18m) annual subscription. In its
2000 spending review, the British government allocated an extra £10m per
year over the next decade to facilitate joining ESO. However, this still
leaves a financial shortfall to be made up by the Particle Physics and
Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the body that funds astronomical
research in the U.K....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_659_1.asp
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AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER DOZENS OF SUPERNOVAE
For Tim Puckett, amateur astronomy long ago transcended being a hobby.
Words like passion and obsession are more apt to explain Puckett's
dedication to the heavens. The most telling evidence is his homegrown
Puckett Observatory Supernova Search, affectionately referred to as POSS.
To date, he and his team of more than a dozen volunteers have discovered
54 supernovae. Fifty of those finds were made in just 46 months. The
hunters winnowed their discoveries from more than 500,000 galaxy images
collected throughout the POSS project.
The workhorse of the POSS program is Puckett's home-built 60-centimeter
reflector. The scope took some nine years to complete, going online
full-time in 1997. Like POSS, constructing the telescope was a labor of
love for Puckett. Many of the scope's "parts and pieces came out of
dumpsters," he says. For the past five years, the telescope has patrolled
the skies over Mountain Town, Georgia, from dawn to dusk, imaging some 900
galaxies nightly....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_661_1.asp
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TWO NEW NASA MISSIONS
NASA has announced funding for two Small Explorer (SMEX) missions. The
purpose of the Explorer program is to frequently launch low-cost
spacecraft. One is an $89 million mission to map gas in the interstellar
medium. Known as Spectroscopy and Photometry of the Intergalactic Medium's
Diffuse Radiation (SPIDR), the craft has a planned launch date of 2005 and
is based at Boston University. The second mission, costing $92 million, is
Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM). Set for launch in 2006, it will
help look for long-term changes in Earth's upper atmosphere by analyzing
the temperature, atmospheric conditions, and water vapor content where
clouds form.
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_660_1.asp
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY
* Venus is brilliant and low in the western sky at twilight.
* First-quarter Moon is on July 16-17.
* Pluto occults a 12th-magnitude star for observers in parts of South
America on July 19th.
For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/
=========================================================================
THE ROLEX AWARDS FOR ENTERPRISE: APPLICATIONS FOR 2004 ARE NOW OPEN
Do you have a project that will have a positive impact on our world? We
invite you to apply to the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. The Rolex Awards
identify and assist individuals embarking on new ventures or completing
ongoing projects. Typically working outside the mainstream, these pioneers
often do not have access to traditional funding sources. In 2004, five
such individuals will be selected and receive financial support to
implement their endeavours. To discover the Awards, please visit:
> http://www.rolexawards.com/news/discover.jsp?news=discover18
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