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Still, the waves have punched through the 1½ mile long island, cutting it into 3 pieces. The story of Holland
Island, once the site of a bustling 19th-century village and now barren save White's house, is the tale of many
islands in the Chesapeake Bay. Rising tides and erosion already have claimed a dozen in both Maryland and
Virginia, and scientists say most of the rest will be consumed by the end of this century. State officials have been studying the problem, which affects more than a third of Maryland's 4,360-mile coastline and is costing the state about 260 acres along the shores each year. For Holland Island, any remedies that come from their efforts may be too late. "There's so much negativity," said White, a former waterman & minister and a semi-retired real estate developer. He lives in Salisbury and visits the island on weekends.
He knows that some people think he is tilting at windmills. But he hasn't got time for such talk. Holland Island has shrunken to 80 acres, less than half its size 50 years ago, and the pace of erosion is increasing. Blunting the battering waves "can be done," he insisted. "It's just a matter of will and ability. I have both of those, but I don't have the funds." White has asked the Maryland Port Administration to use his island as a disposal site for 10 million cubic yards of dredge material from bay channels--enough to restore the island to its footprint of 100 years ago. He also sought about $200,000 from the state and federal government to construct breakwaters and rebuild the island. Failing to win any grants, he has created a stopgap of sandbags, rocks and an old rusted barbecue grill piled next to his house.
But he has what he hopes is a more enduring strategy, the makings of which lie scattered around the island: A
ramshackle Bantam excavator is beached near the house, its rusted chain sprawled by the front door awaiting
repair. In the distance, a dredger sits listing in a watery gut, where White dragged it last year before the winter
storms. He found a small front-end loader abandoned in the marsh and put new rings and bearings in it, but with a broken camshaft, it remains parked in the shadow of the excavator. His plan is to fill 100-foot-long textile tubes with sand from the island's lee side, then sink about 20 of them off the windward shoreline to thwart the waves. He has received permits to dredge 100,000 cubic yards of sand, which is what he figures it will take to build a breakwater the length of the island to prevent further erosion and siltation that has smothered acres of oyster beds and underwater grass. He has managed to scrape up enough to buy 10 tubes, which are tucked among the weeds and in a small shed he built by the house. But they must wait until he gets more money and help to run the machinery to scoop up the sand to fill the tubes.
He hopes to address the Maryland General Assembly to plead his case for getting dredge spoils from the northern regions of the bay. But that decision-making process could take years to unfold, and it could well prove too expensive for the state to transport the dredge material to his island. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now guiding a $427 million project to move more than 30 million cubic yards of sandy soil from the bay's shipping lanes to create a 1,100-acre wildlife refuge at long-diminished Poplar Island. John Gill, leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Chesapeake Bay island unit, admires White's tenacity and has offered him technical advice and assistance, but Gill said his agency had to turn down his request for funds. "There's benefits to the natural resources, but it's private land," said Gill, who heads the service's Chesapeake Bay islands unit. "I support his objective, which is to stop the island from eroding, but I'm not sure that the geotubes will prove to be anything but a stopgap measure."
About 10,500 acres of island have been lost just in the middle portion of the Chesapeake Bay since colonial times, according to the University of Maryland Center for Global Change. Formed centuries ago when Eastern Shore peninsulas were breached by rising bay tides, the three dozen islands in the midsection of the bay help curtail erosion on the Eastern Shore and provide underwater grasses that are habitat for fish and crabs. But as the wind-driven tides batter the islands from the west, their edges wash into the bay. And unlike coastal islands of sand that migrate and reposition, the bay islands' mud clay disintegrates into the water column and is washed into the deeper parts of the bay. With few exceptions, the "hardening" of the bay's western shoreline with bulkheads and jetties prevents the formation of new islands.
White grew up on the Eastern Shore and visited Holland Island as a child. The changes astonished him when he saw the island years later "I looked around, and I didn't recognize the place," he said. A sleepy village that once existed on the island was gone, most of the buildings washed into the bay and the oyster shell roads overgrown with cord grasses and water bushes. As he walked around the island trying to orient himself, he stumbled across a small graveyard under a hackberry tree, its branches filled with the nests of herons and egrets. Brushing the weeds from a headstone , he read the epitaph for a girl named Effie Lee Wilson, born Jan. 6, 1880, died Oct. 12, 1893:
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Forget me not is all I ask; I could not ask for more. Than to be cherished by my friends so loving & so dear.
"It hit me like a ton of bricks," White said. "Here's this girl who's been dead for 100 years seemingly crying out to
me. Some people say that's kind of melodramatic, but I just couldn't let this island disappear." Of the 60
structures that were homes, churches, grocery stores and baseball field on Holland Island, only a handful
remained, and many of the graves had been lost beneath the waves. White tracked down the island's owners,
VA businessmen who used it as a hunting preserve, and explained to them what was happening to it. In 1995, he persuaded them to sell him the property for $73,000 and allow him to make payments over time. Then he began moving his tools & equipt onto the island and started to work. |
--- orig. msg -- from: "JA Pilch" sent: Sat 6.14.03 from soggy D.C. subject: CHANCE OF SHOWERS & THUNDERSTORMS > everyday - 39 of 45 days previous > … SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH UNTIL 7 PM … > TONIGHT … MOSTLY CLOUDY. CHANCE OF RAIN 80%
Your habit of delayed flight plans cost you this day.
Beyond the gate, the statuesque hostess wore butterfly wings and drank from a dragon's claw chalice, a gargoyle guarding the front lap pool; sheep & tumblers lept in the darkened room's holograms and the bed had a fur spread while an up & coming band blazed before the sunken circular iridescent chrome fireplace. Not a cloud in the sky as I recall. |
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Townsfolk reside in states of confusion The simple country life is actually quite complicated in New Pine Creek, split in two along California's border with Oregon. 6.26.05 John M. Glionna L.A. Times
New Pine Creek OR This is a town strangely divided, a tiny slice of eccentricity along a lonely highway at the long-ignored edge of two neighboring states. Thanks to a surveyor's blunder more than a century ago, the California-Oregon border runs right through the middle of this unincorporated backcountry burg, home to 250 residents equally distributed on both sides of the state line.
Californians can forget about overnight home delivery: When they say they live in New Pine Creek, CA, stubborn computers reject their request. Because to the outside world, there is no New Pine Creek in California. For their part, Oregonians until recently had to sneak their kids across the state line to the town's only school, which sits a few steps from the border on the California side. If you shop at the town's only general store, on the Oregon side, you don't pay sales tax, and vehicle registrations in the Beaver State are much cheaper. But over in the Golden State, you pay much less in property taxes.
With toes in two states, New Pine Creek finds itself scrutinized by two abutting and often contradictory government bureaucracies. The town isn't the only California community of two minds. To the southeast, South Lake Tahoe also shares a border with out-of-state cousin Stateline, Nev. Still, in New Pine Creek, things are just different.
A preacher recently arrived at a home on the south side of State Line Road to perform a wedding but then realized his license was valid only in Oregon. So the minister moved the function to the middle of the road and brought the wedding off as planned.
Traversing more than 300 miles of untamed country to trace a line from the 120th meridian to the Pacific Ocean, Major took astronomical readings with a sextant on only 3 occasions, historians say. The result: His border estimate veered back and forth across the true line by up to half a mile, looking more like the bite marks made by a set of crooked teeth.
"You know what that fight was all about, don't you?" asked resident Herb Watts as he stopped by the general store one morning to buy nails. "It was all about oil. Greed and oil." At stake were potential revenues if oil or gas were discovered in coastal waters whose purview was now in question. Officials finally decided to leave the line right where it was.
In New Pine Creek, Yates' pursuit has stirred up unwanted geographic ghosts. Most residents want to leave the border alone. They're happy with their identities. Californian or Oregonian, they say, they're all "New Pine Creekans."
Said Oregon lawyer Dave Vandenberg: "We've always suspected that some people live there to keep one foot in either state, to decide which way to run if the law comes calling." Differing state laws on each side of the border have traditionally kept inspectors busy. Until the 2 school districts signed an agreement last year, regulations forbade parents from schooling their children across the border.
California authorities still routinely check homes south of State Line Road for cars with Oregon plates, looking for Californians who register their vehicles in Oregon, where fees are lower. Fish and game laws are also head-scratchers. In Oregon, anglers can fish for a redband trout considered endangered a short cast away in California. In Oregon, deer with any size antlers are fair game, while California has stricter rules.
Burneikis embodies the loyalties people feel to their side of New Pine Creek. Last year, after her divorce, her ex-husband got the house, which is on the Oregon side, forcing the 64-year-old to rent a home two houses south of the border. Now she's a refugee. |
1.23.03 Will Evans Sacramento Bee
Raelians eat salad. Raelians go fishing. They have children & pets. They have state jobs and worry about
layoffs like anyone else. At least one does, and he lives in Sacramento. Angelo Napolitano, State Board of
Equalization information systems technician, is Sacramento's Raelian, the more involved of only 2 members in the
region. He belongs to the spiritual organization that burst into the news recently for its claim of cloning a baby girl.
Napolitano, 46, is a gung-ho believer. Raelians believe:
What drew in Napolitano was Rael's book, "The True Face of God," now titled "The Message Given by
Extraterrestrials," which he bought off the Internet 2 years ago. "I knew I had to get the book because I had been
really interested in the way God & aliens relate to each other," he says.
Napolitano has always been hooked on outer space. As a child, he peered into telescopes and hoped to become
an astronaut. His father, an engineer, worked on the first U.S. satellite and scrawled Angelo's name on the inside of
a panel. Rael's book fascinated Napolitano. He wasn't completely convinced but decided to try out a Raelian
seminar in Las Vegas.
A transmission is a Raelian baptism performed by a priest, or "guide." In Napolitano's case, it was Brigitte
Boisselier, who, as head of Clonaid, co. affiliated with the Raelians, made the cloning claims. The priest serves as
an antenna, putting a wet hand on the forehead and on the back of an initiate's head.
If a catastrophe occurs on Earth, the Elohim can re-create those people, using the genetic data. And when
Raelians die, they have a piece of their forehead sent to a Raelian safe, where it will be used to re-create them
when the technology is available. Clairvoyant concedes it "might sound a little far-fetched," but says the books
explain everything.
Though there have been charges that Raelians are anti-Semitic, based, in part, on a swastika incorporated into
their original symbol, Palmer says they're not. Rael, whose Jewish father hid from the Nazis, believes Jews are
more intelligent than other people, she says. Raelians advocate feminism, gay rights and racial diversity. The one
thing Raelians are not tolerant of is the Catholic Church, she says, because of some of its actions &
messages.
The organization claims 60,000 members worldwide, a 10% increase since its recent blast of publicity.
There are 15 to 20 Raelians scattered throughout Northern California. Napolitano spreads the word to everyone he meets, every chance he gets. At work, he keeps a Raelian poster in his cubicle, wears his medallion & hopes people will ask him about it.
Raelian marriage is loose, too. Even multiple partners are fine. "We were created for pleasure," Napolitano says. "We like sex; everyone likes sex. There is no human response that avoids pleasure, esp. sexual pleasure." |
The size of the fallen foam was less than half the size of one that could cause damage, NASA officials said.
"Although it is in an area that we don't like to see foam come off it would not have caused damage to the orbiter itself," Shannon said.
Outside experts had mixed opinions on what NASA should do. Osheroff said he was disturbed to hear about the small chunk of foam that fell off while the spacecraft was at rest. His own experiments at Stanford University show that the foam would weigh double what NASA anticipates if water gets into it, leading to potentially catastrophic results if it hits the shuttle.
On the other hand, another member of the Columbia accident board, Space Policy Institute dir. John Logsdon at George Washington University said NASA doesn't have "all the information, but they have no information that says not to go."
Inspectors spotted the crack in the foam insulation during an overnight check of the shuttle. NASA had scrubbed launch plans Saturday and Sunday because of weather problems. The forecast for a Tuesday liftoff was better than previous days, with just a 40 percent chance that storm clouds would prevent liftoff.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin decided last week that the shuttle should go into orbit as planned, despite the concerns of 2 top agency managers, including the top safety officer who wanted additional repairs to the foam insulation.
The mission for Discovery's crew this time is to test shuttle-inspection techniques, deliver supplies to the international space station and drop off European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter for a 6 month stay.
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Earth's newest "moon"? 9.12.02 David Tytell & Roger W. Sinnott Sky & Telescope
9.3.02 in Benson, AZ, Bill Yeung
discovered a 16th-magnitude object on CCD images taken with a 0.45m telescope. It was moving rapidly
northeastward across Pisces. He e-mailed the positions to the Minor Planet Ctr in Cambridge, MA, which quickly
posted the object on its Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page under the temporary designation J002E3.
Photometric measurements by Peter Kusnirak in the Czech Republic failed to show much variation in brightness,
as would be expected of a small metallic object, especially if cylindrical. But the big question is, if it is really in Earth
orbit, why has it not been detected before? In Yeung's words, 16th magnitude should have made it "a piece of
cake" for survey telescopes or for CCD-equipped amateur instruments to locate long ago.
Still, Brian G. Marsden (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Minor Planet Center) remains skeptical that
the mystery object is a rocky
asteroid. "There is a very remote chance it's natural," he believes. "Just because it hasn't been identified doesn't
mean it's not artificial." "I will be awfully surprised if this is a natural thing captured by Earth,"
says Marsden.
According to Marsden, the object's geocentric orbit was his first indication that the body was most likely space junk.
But to be certain, he suggests that astrometric stations continue monitoring its motion and that radio telescopes
observe the mysterious body. A detailed ephemeris is available from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's HORIZONS
System. "Radar ought to be able to tell us pretty quickly if we are seeing a polished metallic surface or a natural
surface," says Marsden. "Radar would settle it once and for all."
First confirmed capture into earth orbit is likely Apollo rocket 9.20.02 press
release 2002-178 NASA JPL
… Analysis this week by researchers from the Univ. of Arizona, Tucson & MIT, Cambridge, suggests that
J002E3's surface is white paint rather than more asteroid-like material. If it is not from the Apollo 12 rocket, some
less likely possibilities are one of the 4 7m long (22' long) panels that enclosed lunar modules from 6 Apollo
missions or rocket stages from Soviet or U.S. unmanned lunar missions. Those are less likely because they seem
too small to match the object's observed brightness, and they are not known to have been left in orbits that could
have escaped Earth. Additional observations in coming weeks may pin down the identification.
After J002E3 escaped Earth's gravity in 1971, it raced Earth in circles around the Sun, but it had an inner lane, so it
completed 33 solar orbits in the time it took Earth to complete 31. In 1986, the object lapped Earth on the inside,
too far away to be snagged by Earth's gravity. This year, it was about to lap Earth again but passed too close to the
L1 portal and Earth captured it.
Earth won't have seen the last of J002E3 when this peripatetic bit of space junk escapes after its sixth orbit in
mid-2003. It will shift from solar orbit to Earth orbit again in decades ahead. "This type of orbit can't last very
long," Chodas said. "That's one reason it would be very unlikely to find an asteroid with an orbit like this." Within
several thousand years, the object will likely end its travels by hitting the Moon or Earth. That is not cause for
concern, though. 5 rocket stages like the Apollo 12 third stage were crashed into the Moon intentionally as part
of seismic research, and several others harmlessly disintegrated when they re-entered Earth's atmosphere.
UA astronomers discover that Earth's second moon wears Apollo
paint
9.17.02 Lori Stiles UANews
Astronomers have the first direct evidence that a newly discovered object orbiting Earth is debris from one of the
Apollo moon launches over 30 years ago. Carl Hergenrother and Robert Whiteley, astronomers at the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory at Univ. of
Arizona, used the Steward Observatory 61" telescope near Mount Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of
Tucson for observations of J002E3.
After studying the object's past motion, Paul Chodas of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
Calif., concluded that the object had been orbiting the sun until April of this year, when it was captured by Earth.
Researchers have believed that J002E3's small size and unusual orbit suggest the object is no asteroid or other
natural object, but a piece of man-made "space junk," possibly a piece of one of the Saturn V rockets that launched
American astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program.
Hergenrother & Whiteley measured reflected light from the object Sept. 12 and 13. The photometric
measurements showed that the object spins once every 63.5 seconds or once every 127 seconds, more
observations are needed to pin down the exact time, Hergenrother said. "Such a rapid rate of rotation is not
unheard of either for an asteroid or a piece of man-made space junk, but is very consistent with each," he
added. Hergenrother & Whiteley checked their observations with some professional colleagues, " a kind of informal 'peer review' just in case we were way off on things," Hergenrother said. Those key colleagues incl Richard Binzel & Andy Rivken of Massachusetts Inst. of Technology. Binzel & Rivken took infrared spectra on the unique object, and those spectra "confirm that J002E3 is a dead ringer for white TiO paint," Hergenrother added. The object is most likely a S-IVB from either Apollo 8, 10, 11, or 12, with Apollo 12 being most likely, the UA researchers conclude. "As Bill Yeung said, this is the first recorded observation of any object being captured into a geocentric orbit," Hergenrother said. "There is also a fairly good chance that J002E3 might crash into the moon at some point. Scientifically, that isn't too important, but it is interesting, " he said. |
There are a lot of asteroids, thousands of them. During recent tracking effort to catalog them, an amateur Canadian
astronomer Bill Yeung, with an observatory in Arizona, found an interesting asteroid. Then he kept watching it. It looked like it
was orbiting Earth rather than the sun, which makes it a moon.
It was probably only recently captured by the Earth's gravitational field. Australian observations indicated it was not
just another piece of space junk; it did not match any known space junk. A NASA astronomer has determined that,
if it is new, it was probably drawn into Earth orbit in April or May.
Asteroid hunter's once in a blue moon find
… … If J002E3 is declared a moon, then its next name is likely to be no more exciting: it will be
designated S/2002E1. The S stands for satellite, the E1 for the first satellite of Earth discovered in 2002. It circles
the Earth every 49.5 days along an elliptical path which sometimes has it 840,000 km (520,000 miles) from Earth,
sometimes a trifling 300,000 km, (12.16.02 est. 144,000 km, just over a third of Luna's distance from Earth) and tilted at 21 degrees from the plane of the
Earth's own orbit around the sun. The distance of the more familiar moon is about 380,000 km on average and it
circles the Earth every 27.32 days.
J002E3's size is uncertain: if it is a lump of space rock, then judging by the light reflected from it is a mere 50m
across. Its composition is also uncertain: there is a chance that J002E3 is an old rocket body, strayed improbably
far from home. If so, and if it is painted white to make it a good reflector, then it might be a only 10m or 20m in
length. … Any object bright enough to have been picked up by an amateur telescope would be too bright to
have escaped discovery for long. NASA researchers have already guessed that at some point in its
freewheeling adventures in orbit, it was "captured" by the Earth's gravitational field. This is how Jupiter must have
acquired at least some of its treasury of moons. In 1991 2 objects in orbit around the sun were classified as asteroids but turned out to be manmade satellites. "We have seen returning spacecraft before, but this one is different. It has recently arrived in orbit around our planet. Astronomers have made mistakes with returned rocket bodies before," said. Univ. of Salford astronomer & asteroid expert Duncan Steel. …
9.19.02 P.Chodas & S.Chesley NASA
While it was strongly suspected a week ago that J002E3 had been captured by the Earth in April of this year, it was
not known how long the object had been orbiting the Sun prior to capture. Additional observations have now
confirmed that the object was indeed captured from a solar orbit earlier this year, and they have also made clear
that it escaped the Earth-Moon system in March 1971.
The timing of the object's escape is consistent with our theory that this object is the Apollo 12 S-IVB third stage,
which was left in a distant Earth orbit after it was launched on 11.14.69 and passed the Moon 4 days later. We
theorize that the spent rocket orbited the Earth chaotically for 15 months before finding the exit pathway
through the L1 portal. The excellent match between the intrinsic brightness of J002E3 and that expected for a
rocket stage of the S-IVB's size also supports this theory.
Furthermore, these alternative candidates seem too small to explain the current brightness of J002E3. We
conclude that the Apollo 12 S-IVB stage is the most likely identity of the object. Our improved orbital knowledge for
J002E3 is also allowing more precise predictions for its future motion. The likelihood that the object will impact the
Moon next year has decreased to less than 1%. This new conclusion follows from the fact that the range of
possible motion in 2003 is now more tightly constrained and barely intersects the Moon. The possibility of collision
with the Earth has also decreased, down to well less than 1%. (Even if it should hit our planet, the object is too
small to be considered hazardous.)
9.20.02 Dr. Tony Phillips Space Science
Could it be an alien spaceship? "If it is," says Chodas, "the aliens aren't good pilots. J002E3 is in a chaotic orbit. It
loops around Earth once every 48 days or so, coming as close to our planet as the Moon and ranging as far away as 2 lunar distances."
There's no evidence that the speck is moving under its own power. The orbit is constantly
changing because of gravitational perturbations by the Sun & Moon.
At first glance, J002E3 would seem to be from Apollo 14. That mission began in January of 1971, and according to Chodas' calculations J002E3 broke out of Earth orbit in March of the same year. There's a problem, though: NASA has accounted for all the big pieces of the Apollo 14 spacecraft. None are missing.
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Another possibility is that J002E3 is an S-IVB from Apollo 12. Unlike Apollo 14,
Apollo 12's S-IVB did not crash into the Moon. The crew jettisoned it 11.15.69, when it was nearly out of fuel. Once
the astronauts were safely away, ground controllers ignited the S-IVB's engine. They meant to send the 60' long
tank into a Sun-centered orbit, but something went wrong; the burn lasted too long.
Instead of circling the Sun, the S-IVB entered a barely-stable orbit around the Earth & Moon "much like the
current orbit of J002E3," notes Chodas. Eventually, the Apollo 12 S-IVB vanished; no one knows when.
Perhaps gravitational tugs from the Sun & Moon accumulated until they nudged the engine away from Earth in
1971. In this scenario, it would have circled the Sun for 31 years until it was re-captured by Earth's gravity in 2002.
"It's plausible," says Chodas, "but still speculative."
Chodas' calculations indicate that J002E3 will leave Earth again in June 2003 to resume its orbit around the Sun.
"Thirty years from now," he notes, "it might come back again." … J002E3 from afar (is) an unresolved speck
of light easily detected by 8" to 10" telescopes with CCD cameras. This week J002E3 is gliding through the
constellation Taurus. … With its 2.4m dia. mirror, the smallest object the Hubble Space Telescope can resolve
at the Moon's distance is about 80m across. J002E3 is no larger than about 30m if it is an asteroid or 20m if it is an
S-IVB, too small for Hubble.
Scientists theorize the mystery line could be either a meteorite or one of 7 out-of-commission spacecraft
still orbiting Mars. Because the object appeared to move 4 degrees of an arc in 15 seconds, it's probably not the
Russian probes Mars 2, Mars 3, Mars 5, or Phobos 2; or the American probes Mariner 9 or Viking 1.
That leaves Viking 2, which has a polar orbit that would fit with the north-south orientation of the streak. In addition,
only Viking 1 & 2 were left in orbits that could produce motion as fast as that seen by Spirit.
Said Texas A&M University rover team member Mark Lemmon, "Is this the first image of a meteor on Mars, or an
image of a spacecraft sent from another world during the dawn of our robotic space exploration program? We may
never know, but we are still looking for clues."
The inset shows only the panoramic image of the streak.
Mystery emissions found at solar system edge
High-energy ribbon on sky map don’t resemble current theories of region
10.15.09 Clara Moskowitz MSNBC
In the murky boundary between our solar system and the rest of the galaxy, scientists have spotted a bright band of surprising high-energy emissions.
The results come from the first all-sky map created by NASA's new Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, launched Oct. 2008. While orbiting Earth, IBEX monitors incoming neutral atoms that originate billions of miles away at the solar system's edge to learn about the interaction between the sun and the cold expanse of space.
"The IBEX results are truly remarkable, with emissions not resembling any of the current theories or models of this never-before-seen region," said IBEX principal investigator David McComas at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas. "We expected to see small, gradual spatial variations at the interstellar boundary, some 10 billion miles away. However, IBEX is showing us a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky."
This ribbon of energy lies at the very edge of the solar system, where the bubble of charged particles streaming from the sun finally peters out. This bubble is called the heliosphere, and it encompasses the region of space dominated by the sun's influence.
At the boundary of the heliosphere, the sun's positively-charged particles interact with neutral atoms drifting in from interstellar space. When these particles meet, an electron may hop over from a neutral atom to a charged one, called an ion. The result: the charged particle becomes neutral. IBEX detects these fast-moving neutral particles and traces their paths back to the solar system's edge to create a picture of this chaotic frontier.
"We're just now getting a handle on the interaction of the surrounding interstellar medium with the heliosphere, and that's providing us with the big picture," said mission co-investigator Eberhard Möbius of the University of New Hampshire.
The mission scientists said they were surprised to discover the striking band in IBEX's sky maps, because no models had predicted such a pattern beforehand.
McComas said when he first saw the IBEX results he thought, "'Something's wrong,' It was quite a long time before we convinced ourselves that we were right," he said.
The bright ribbon appears to be shaped by the direction of the interstellar magnetic field outside the heliosphere. Scientists think this suggests that the galactic environment just outside the solar system has far more influence on the structure of the heliosphere than previously believed.
"[The ribbon is] aligned by and dominated by the external magnetic field," McComas said in a briefing Thursday. "That's a huge clue as to what's going on. But still we're missing some really fundamental aspect of the interaction; some fundamental physics is missing from our understanding."
The boundary of the solar system was first explored by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 2004 when it encountered an invisible shock created as the charged particles streaming off the sun hit the neutral gas from interstellar space. Its sister craft Voyager 2 followed into the solar system's edge in 2007. While these spacecraft began the exploration of this wild frontier, IBEX is now revealing a whole new picture.
"The most astounding feature in the IBEX sky maps, the bright narrow ribbon, snakes through the sky between the Voyager spacecraft, where it remained completely undetected until now," McComas said. The new IBEX results will be published in 10.16.09 issue of the journal Science.
1.3.03 Reuters
Wash.D.C. An asteroid playing a cat & mouse game with Earth will pull to its closest point
in almost a century on Monday before swinging away for another 95 years, NASA said in a statement. Asteroid
2002 AA29 is like a mouse teasing a cat, approaching Earth first on one side and then on another, without ever
making contact or actually passing our planet as the 2 bodies circle the sun, the astronomers said on Thursday.
At just 200 ft, the tiny asteroid will get within 3.7 million miles on Monday.
In 95 years, the asteroid will have advanced all the way around to where it is catching up to the Earth from behind.
A similar interaction with gravity from both the Earth & sun will then push the asteroid back onto a slower
outside track, and the pattern will repeat. To an observer moving with the Earth, the asteroid appears to trace out a
horse-shoe pattern, NASA said.
Report says asteroid did not kill dinosaurs
Wash.D.C. A Mexican crater often cited as evidence that a single asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs
may not have been involved in that extinction at all, according to a new report. A group of researchers led by Gerta
Keller of Princeton University contends that the impact that caused the crater occurred 300,000 years before the extinction.
Because it would have taken hundreds of thousands of years for the limestone layer to form, they argue the impact
must have occurred well before the extinction. However, Richard D. Norris of the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, responded that the group has incorrectly located the K-T boundary and noted it suggests the
sediments were deposited mainly in deep, quiet water. "The laminations, particularly since they are not of uniform
thickness or horizontal, could easily be the product of high-energy bottom currents,'' he said. "The evidence they
present, can in most cases be argued either way and so does not really resolve anything,'' Norris commented.
Small asteroid will fly by Earth tonight
A small asteroid will buzz the Earth late Friday EDT, flying just inside the orbit of the moon. It should pass safely by our home planet, according to a crack team of NASA space rock trackers. The space rock, named 2009 TM8, was just discovered Thursday by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. It will get within 216,000 miles of Earth when it zooms by at a speed of about 18,163 mph.
The asteroid hunters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., stands on constant watch for rogue space rocks that could pose an impact risk to Earth. It was the same team which, last week, scaled back the risk of another asteroid, a large space rock called Apophis, hitting the Earth in 2036.
When an object like this does strike, "if it's typical density, it would create a 4 kiloton explosion in the Earth's atmosphere if it were to hit, which of course it won't," said JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office manager Don Yeomans. "You'd expect an object of this size to fly within the orbit of the moon every few days or so."
Professional and amateur skywatchers are expected to keep a close eye on 2009 TM8 over the next few days to refine its path through space. Additional observations will help astronomers pin down the rock's entire track around the sun. "We'll have this orbit nailed within a couple days or so," Yeomans said. |
Killer asteroid approaching the Earth?
¹ 1.17.03 Pravda
British Society for Popular Astronomy vp Robin Scagell said: "Now we start realizing that we are living in the world
that is a real shooting range in fact. Until now, the mankind was lucky." He added that only when the last generation
of telescopes appeared, astronomers understood that the space was polluted with "tiny" meteorites &
asteroids, each of them may wipe a large city off the face of the Earth.
Ukraine's 12.27.02 Pravda Ukraini (Ukrainian Truth) newspaper reported a meteorite called Eight (it is called so by
its shape) was approaching the Earth and would hit the planet 1.25.03. It was also reported that "leaders &
scientists of the world largest countries started incredibly heated disputes on the problem, the first time that projects
of astrophysicists were discussed at parliamentary sessions in Central Europe. Most optimistic forecasts say that if
the meteorite falls, it may raze to the ground the territory of several thousands of square km."
… 6.14.02 asteroid 2002MN 100m in length passed by Earth at a distance of 120 thousand km, less than one
third of the distance between Earth & the Moon. The asteroid was detected only in 3 days after it successfully
passed the planet.
Don Quixote to ride again on cosmic rescue mission
7.16.04 Reuters
London Mythical Spanish knight Don Quixote, famed for charging at windmills he mistakes for
enemies, is to ride again on a cosmic mission to save the world. The European Space Agency has given high
priority to a Spanish project which aims to attack an approaching asteroid to see whether spacecraft can deflect a
body that may in future be on a collision course with earth.
Two craft will set out, one named after the valiant knight of Cervantes' classic tale, the other after his
long-suffering servant Sancho Panza. Spacecraft Sancho will circle the chosen asteroid while the other --
aping its literary namesake -- smashes headlong into the target.
"It will tell us how the target responds to an impact," said Alan Harris, Chairman of the Near-Earth Object
Mission Advisory Panel (NEOMAP). "If you think about the chain of events between detecting a
hazardous object and doing something about it, there is one area in which we have no experience at all
and that is in directly interacting with an asteroid, trying to alter its orbit."
Incoming asteroids, power-beaming satellites
A 10.11.07 Congressional hearing will deal with that controversial and contentious NASA report on dealing with the space agency’s NEO survey program. Lawmakers want to examine the status of NASA’s ability to track and catalog NEOs, and current thinking about how best to thwart an incoming space rock with Earth’s name on it.
In a newly issued note on The Near-Earth Objects: Status of the Survey Program and Review of NASA’s Report to Congress hearing, the witnesses will be NASA Planetary Science Div. dir. James Green, NASAS Program Analysis and Evaluation Associate Administrator Scott Pace, JPL/NASA Near Earth Object Program Office manager Donald Yeomans, Cornell Univ. astronomy prof. Donald Campbell; and B612 Foundation chair Russell Schweickart …
Life's raw material can come from space
We may all be aliens, it seems. Some of the building blocks of life on Earth came from space, according to a new study of molecules in meteorite fragments. The study confirmed that some of the raw material for DNA and RNA found in a meteorite did not contaminate the rock after it landed on Earth, but actually originated in space. |
Martins and her colleagues detailed their findings in the 6.15.08 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The team discovered the molecules in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969. The scientists analyzed the genetic building blocks and found that they contain a heavy form of carbon which could only have been formed in space. Materials formed on Earth are made of a lighter type of carbon.
The two molecules in this study are only a few of the organic molecules that have been detected in the famous Murchison meteorite, said University of California Santa Cruz chemist David Deamer.
"There are about 70 different amino acids in the Murchison meteorite," Deamer told SPACE.com. "About six or so are the same kinds of amino acids associated with life on Earth."
Uracil is one of the four base molecules of RNA, so is vital for life.
Just because the molecules found on this meteorite and others came from space, doesn't mean the same compounds weren't also independently synthesized on Earth, Deamer pointed out. Scientists are unsure how many of the building blocks of life on Earth originated on this planet, and how many came from beyond.
"We don't know the answer yet," he said. "Most people would say that both contributed to the organic compounds available on Earth, but we don't know with certainty how much of one compared to the other."
Many space rocks similar to the Murchison meteorite rained down on Earth between 3.8 and 4.5 billion years ago, when primitive life was forming. The heavy bombardment would have dropped large amounts of meteorite material to the surface on planets such as Earth and Mars.
Martins and her colleagues say their discovery may help shed light on how life first evolved in our solar system.
"Because meteorites represent leftover materials from the formation of the solar system, the key components for life, including nucleobases, could be widespread in the cosmos," said co-author Imperial College London Earth science and engineering prof. Mark Sephton. "As more and more of life's raw materials are discovered in objects from space, the possibility of life springing forth wherever the right chemistry is present becomes more likely."
The dome may be just one more visible sign that hydrothermal fluids are on the move, seeping into vulnerable sediments and creating another potential hazard in a park that has already endured earthquakes & volcanic eruptions.
Already this summer, increased geothermal activity prompted park officials to seal off trails at one of the
hottest geysers in the park for the safety of the more than 3 million annual visitors as well as the staff. Morgan
wonders whether the same geothermal activity that inflated the dome is to blame for reawakening a nearby geyser
that has long been dormant and for causing a 20-degree rise in water temperature at a nearby hot pool.
Yellowstone, world's best real-time geologic laboratory, is teeming with spewing geysers such as Old Faithful,
along with rumbling earthquakes, superheated hydrothermal fluids seeping from vents, and sputtering mud pots,
where acid has dissolved rock and the resulting heat and water make the mud bubble. Yellowstone Lake, North
America's largest high-altitude lake, shares this powerful geology.
They found the lake bottom was paved by lava flows and scoured by glaciers, and that a few sections
were dusted by fine sand likely swept there by earthquake-generated tsunami waves. The lake's geology
lay concealed by its waves until revealed by the high-tech detective work. The bathymetric maps also
sketched the contours of a swollen lump of land deep beneath the surface.
Dropping a submersible rover for a closer look confirmed that up to a gallon per second of shimmering
water shot from hydrothermal vents as large as coffee cans. This summer, Morgan will float in a tricked-
out boat atop the lake, ricocheting more sound waves off the lake floor to closely map any new curves.
CT based Eastern Oceanics owner Dave Lovalvo will pilot the $500,000 rover he built, directing its probes
into vents spewing superheated hydrothermal fluids.
Until that's known, researchers such as Robert B. Smith, auth. "Windows Into the Earth: Geologic Story of
Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks," doesn't know what to make of Morgan's bathymetric maps
despite 40 years of research at the park. "I guess the question is, is it actually going on today or is it a discovery of
a mound that had inflated sometime in the past? I really don't know," said Univ. of Utah geology prof. Smith.
6.1.04 AP ¹ ²
Cape Charles VA Geologists drilling half a mile below Virginia's Eastern Shore say they have
uncovered more signs of a space rock's impact 35 million years ago. For more than 2 weeks, scientists drilled
around the clock alongside a parking lot across the harbor from Cape Charles. They stopped at 2,700 ft. From the
depths came jumbled, mixed bits of crystalline & melted rock that can be dated, as well as marine deposits,
brine and other evidence of an ancient comet or asteroid that slammed into once-shallow waters near the Delmarva
Peninsula.
Over the past decade, USGS & Virginia scientists have investigated indications that a 2 mile wide brilliant ball traveling tens of thousands of miles per hour
crashed off the Virginia coast, burrowing thousands of feet and depressing & fracturing the bedrock.
Geological research off the NJ & VA coasts, begun in 1983, led to the crater's discovery a decade later.
Drilling and further study of seismic data narrowed the location in the Chesapeake Bay. "We're getting evidence
about how hot this thing (was) and what was the energy," said USGS hydrologist David Powars, one of those
credited with the crater's discovery.
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A key member of the 16-nation space station program, Russia has undertaken to provide Soyuz capsules.
Designed to carry 3 people, they remain docked to the orbiting outpost for months at a time and can be used for
emergency rescues. It is intended for use on a single mission. Ryumin said that without Soyuz, U.S. crews would
not be able to use the space station as their shuttle craft were designed to remain at the station for a maximum of 3
weeks. The U.S. program also had no alternative provision for rescue missions. "That is why the issue has been
raised of 
