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Дата: 07 мая 1998 (1998-05-07) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Planetary Society To Award Second Round Of Asteroid-Discovery Grants Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Planetary Society To Award Second Round of Asteroid-Discovery Grants Gene Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grants Encourage Detection of Potentially Dangerous Comets and Asteroids The Planetary Society is seeking applications for the second round of selections for the Gene Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grants. The purpose of the grant program is to increase the rate of discovery and follow-up studies of asteroids and comets in Earth's vicinity by enabling amateur observers, observers in developing countries, and professional astronomers who, with seed funding, could greatly increase their programs' contributions to this critical research. The deadline for receipt of applications for the second round of selections is June 30, 1998. Previous awardees will not be considered for the present selection and applicants for the first round wishing consideration in the second selection are requested to submit new, updated applications. Application forms are available on this web site (http://planetary.org/NEO/neo-guidelines.html). The Society's NEO Grant Program is coordinated by Daniel D. Durda, an asteroid researcher at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. An international advisory group, including noted near-Earth object scientists Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute, Andrea Carusi of the Spaceguard Foundation, and Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, will advise the Planetary Society on the selection of awards for the grants. Facing the Threat of Comets and Asteroids Popular awareness of the threat of comet and asteroid impacts has increased dramatically in recent months with the report of a close approach past Earth of the asteroid 1997 XF11 in October 2028 and the summer release of the movies Deep Impact and Armageddon. Earth lives in a swarm of near-Earth objects of different sizes and orbits. Scientists have only recently begun to understand the significant contribution NEOs have made to the evolution of Earth -- and of life on Earth -- just as impacts from comets and asteroids have contributed to the evolution of all planets throughout the solar system. Less than 200 NEOs have been discovered thus far. Scientists estimate that there are several thousand such NEOs larger than one kilometer and 150,000 to perhaps 100 million larger than 100 meters in size. While various astronomical groups and NASA advisory committees have strongly recommended discovery of these objects be accelerated, government support for NEO search and follow-up programs remains modest. "At the current rate of discovery, it would take decades to find a majority of even the large NEOS," says Planetary Society Executive Director Louis Friedman. The Planetary Society hopes that its NEO Grant Program will help map the potential hazards of the future, allowing humanity to better understand the threat of cosmic collisions. The Society is cooperating with the Spaceguard Foundation, a European-based international organization, to help fund and promote discovery of near-Earth objects. Previous Grant Recipients The first four Gene Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grants were awarded at the Celebration of Life service honoring Shoemaker at the US Geological Survey Flagstaff Field Center on October 11, 1997. The grants, totaling more than $35,000, were awarded to Gordan Garradd of Australia, Kirill Zamarashkin of Russia, Walter Wild of the United States, and Bill Holliday of the United States for upgrades to their programs to search for NEOs. The Society funds for the NEO Grant Program come from its 100,000 members worldwide, whose voluntary dues and donations permit targeted support to research and development programs. Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 07 мая 1998 (1998-05-07) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Test Pilots To Testbeds - NASA Cushions Liftoff and Eases Bedsores Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Don Nolan-Proxmire Headquarters, Washington, DC May 6, 1998 (Phone: 202/358-1983) RELEASE: 98-77 TEST PILOTS TO TESTBEDS -- NASA CUSHIONS LIFTOFF AND EASES BEDSORES A foam material developed by NASA researchers to cushion pilots against the rigors of test flight, and currently in use aboard the Space Shuttles, is now being successfully sold in pillows and mattresses by a Lexington, KY, company to treat disorders ranging from sleeplessness to the more severe illness of pressure ulcers, commonly known as bedsores. Tempur-Pedic's products have been cited by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as "very effective for the treatment and prevention" of bedsores and "very comfortable" to patients. Both the Veterans Affairs Department and the National Institutes of Health have purchased hundreds of Tempur-Pedic products for use in their pain management and ulcer treatment programs. Bedsores, which can be fatal if left untreated, cost the Medicare and Medicaid programs almost $2 billion annually for treatment of wheelchair-bound, nursing home and hospital patients. The one millionth pillow produced by the company, Tempur- Pedic, will be presented by its CEO, Robert Trussell, to NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, on Wednesday, May 6, at 5 p.m. EDT in the NASA Headquarters Auditorium, 300 E Street, SW, Washington, DC. Administrator Goldin said, "This NASA technology designed to protect astronauts and pilots is now being used to help the elderly, the disabled and hospital patients. NASA is deeply committed to transferring our unique knowledge to improve the quality of life for all Americans." Tempur-Pedic's Trussell added, "We have taken NASA's space-age material and developed it into 'body-friendly' bedding, which distributes pressure more evenly throughout the spine, joints and other parts of the body." Tempur-Pedic's pillows, mattresses and other products made from Temper Foam have billions of self-ventilating memory molecules that slowly react to body heat and weight. It was first developed by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, for use in aircraft test-pilot seats and to protect airline passengers in crashes. Temper Foam was recently inducted into the United States Space Foundation's Space Technology Hall of Fame, Colorado Springs, CO. NASA actively encourages commercialization of its technologies. To learn more about NASA innovations, commercialization efforts and the Agency's technology transfer programs, interested parties can call 1-800-678-6882 or access the NASA Commercial Technology Network web page at URL: http://nctn.hq.nasa/gov/ Tempur-Pedic can be contacted by telephoning 1-800-886-6466 or at the web address: www.tempurpedic.com -end- Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 07 мая 1998 (1998-05-07) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: National Space Society Calls for President to Act on ISS Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... CONTACT: Karen Rugg (202) 543-1900, ext. 77 NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY DELIVERS CALL TO PRESIDENT TO BE PART OF SOLUTION FOR SPACE STATION, NOT PART OF PROBLEM (Washington, DC) -- May 6, 1998 -- Today, just before the start of a full House Science Committee hearing on the International Space Station (ISS), the National Space Society delivered a letter to President Clinton urging his Administration to step forward, establish a relationship with the new Russian cabinet and work with the U.S.'s international partners to resolve funding and construction schedule problems in the ISS program. "The Clinton Administration won credit for bringing Russia into the ISS partnership back in 1993," said NSS Executive Director Pat Dasch. "Since then, it appears as if the Administration has been sitting on the sidelines while a series of problems -- some in NASA's control and many not -- have developed. It is now incumbent upon the White House to step onto the playing field and provide the necessary leadership to deal with Russian delays." She adds, "NASA scientists and engineers are not the people to do this, only the Administration has the international diplomatic resources that can be brought to bear on the situation. Postponing the inevitable will increase costs to America's taxpayers, weaken our nation's space program and sully our relationships with the international partners." The International Space Station is necessary to learn how to keep astronauts healthy in space over long periods of time. The station will facilitate the commercial development of low Earth orbit and pave the way for human exploration of other worlds. Research aboard the station holds the promise of improving life on Earth in different ways -- from increasing the production of scarce drugs from plants and microorganisms, to improving fuel efficiency, and creating new and better materials. The National Space Society, founded in 1974, is an independent, nonprofit space advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, DC. Its 23,000 members and 90 chapters around the world actively promote a spacefaring civilization. Information on NSS and space exploration is available at <http://www.nss.org/>. ### Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 07 мая 1998 (1998-05-07) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: JPL Evening Lectures Highlight Icy and Fiery Space Destinations Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov Contact: Jane Platt FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 5, 1998 JPL EVENING LECTURES HIGHLIGHT ICY AND FIERY SPACE DESTINATIONS Three varied solar system locations--the Sun, Pluto and Jupiter's moon Europa--will be featured in two free public lectures on Thursday, May 14 at 7 p.m. in JPL's von Karman Auditorium, and on Friday, May 15 at 7 p.m. in The Forum at Pasadena City College. Seating is limited and will be on a first- come, first-served basis. The lectures, entitled "Ice & Fire: Traveling to Difficult Solar System Destinations," will feature the three planned missions of the Outer Planets/Solar Probe project. The three are Europa Orbiter, a mission to look for evidence of liquid oceans on Jupiter's icy moon, Europa; Solar Probe, which will travel closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft; and Pluto-Kuiper Express, which will fly by Pluto and its moon Charon, and possibly into the Kuiper Disk, the cold, dark outer fringes of our solar system. The three missions are tentatively scheduled for launch between 2003 and 2007 The lectures will be presented by Robert Staehle, deputy manager for the Outer Planets/Solar Probe project. Staehle previously served as Ice and Fire Preprojects manager. His space exploration career began when his student experiment "Bacteria Aboard Skylab" flew on the first American space station. With his aeronautical and astronautical engineering background, Staehle worked on the Voyager mission and contributed to lunar and planetary exploration studies. He learned from a variety of industries how to cut mission development costs and lead time dramatically, knowledge well-suited to the goals of the Outer Planets/Solar Probe missions. Please note that the lectures on Deep Space 1, originally scheduled for May 14 and 15, have been rescheduled for August 20 at JPL and August 21 at PCC. The speaker will be Dr. Marc Rayman, chief mission engineer and deputy mission manager. This lecture is part of the von Karman Lecture Series sponsored monthly by the JPL Media Relations Office. A web site on the lecture series is located at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/lecture. For directions and other information, call the Media Relations Office at (818) 354-5011. ##### Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 07 мая 1998 (1998-05-07) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Most Powerful Explosion Since The Big Bang Challenges Gamma Ray Burst Subject: Most Powerful Explosion Since The Big Bang Challenges Gamma Ray Burst Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC May 6, 1998 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Bill Steigerwald Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (Phone: 301/286-5017) Robert Tindol California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (Phone: 626/395-3631) RELEASE: 98-75 MOST POWERFUL EXPLOSION SINCE THE BIG BANG CHALLENGES GAMMA RAY BURST THEORIES A recently detected cosmic gamma ray burst released a hundred times more energy than previously theorized, making it the most powerful explosion since the creation of the universe in the Big Bang. "For about one or two seconds, this burst was as luminous as all the rest of the entire universe," said Caltech professor George Djorgovski, one of the two principal investigators on the team from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. The team measured the distance to a faint galaxy from which the burst originated at about 12 billion light years from the Earth. The observed brightness of the burst despite this great distance implies an enormous energy release. The team's findings appear in the May 7 issue of the journal Nature. The burst was detected on Dec. 14, 1997, by the Italian/Dutch BeppoSAX satellite and NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite. The Compton observatory provided detailed measurements of the total brightness of the burst, designated GRB 971214, while BeppoSAX provided its precise location, enabling follow-up observations with ground-based telescopes and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. "The energy released by this burst in its first few seconds staggers the imagination," said Caltech professor Shrinivas Kulkarni, the other principal investigator on the team. The burst appears to have released several hundred times more energy than an exploding star, called a supernova, until now the most energetic known phenomenon in the universe. Finding such a large energy release over such a brief period of time is unprecedented in astronomy, except for the Big Bang itself. "In a region about a hundred miles across, the burst created conditions like those in the early universe, about one millisecond (1/1,000 of a second) after the Big Bang," said Djorgovski. This large amount of energy was a surprise to astronomers. "Most of the theoretical models proposed to explain these bursts cannot explain this much energy," said Kulkarni. "However, there are recent models, involving rotating black holes, which can work. On the other hand, this is such an extreme phenomenon that it is possible we are dealing with something completely unanticipated and even more exotic." Gamma-ray bursts are mysterious flashes of high-energy radiation that appear from random directions in space and typically last a few seconds. They were first discovered by U.S. Air Force Vela satellites in the 1960s. Since then, numerous theories of their origin have been proposed, but the causes of gamma-ray bursts remain unknown. The Compton observatory has detected several thousand bursts so far. The principal limitation in understanding the bursts was the difficulty in pinpointing their direction on the sky. Unlike visible light, gamma rays are exceedingly difficult to observe with a telescope, and the bursts' short duration exacerbates the problem. With BeppoSAX, scientists now have a tool to localize the bursts on the celestial sphere with sufficient precision to permit follow-up observations with the world's most powerful ground-based telescopes. This breakthrough led to the discovery of long-lived "afterglows" of bursts in X-rays, visible and infrared light, and radio waves. While gamma-ray bursts last only a few seconds, their afterglows can be studied for several months. Study of the afterglows indicated that the bursts do not originate within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, but rather are associated with extremely distant galaxies. Both BeppoSAX and NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer spacecraft detected an X-ray afterglow. BeppoSAX precision led to the detection of a visible light afterglow, found by a team from Columbia University, New York, NY, and Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, including Professors Jules Halpern, David Helfand, John Torstensen, and their collaborators, using a 2.4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, AZ, but no distance could be measured from these observations. As the visible light from the burst afterglow faded, the Caltech team detected an extremely faint galaxy at its location, using one of the world's largest telescopes, the 10-meter Keck II telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The galaxy is about as faint as an ordinary 100 watt light bulb would be as seen from a distance of a million miles. Subsequent images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the association of the burst afterglow with this faint galaxy and provided a more detailed image of the host galaxy. The Caltech team succeeded in measuring the distance to this galaxy, using the light-gathering power of the Keck II telescope. The galaxy is at a redshift of z=3.4, or about 12 billion light years distant (assuming the universe to be about 14 billion years old). From the distance and the observed brightness of the burst, astronomers derived the amount of energy released in the flash. Although the burst lasted approximately 50 seconds, the energy released was hundreds of times larger than the energy given out in supernova explosions, and it is about equal to the amount of energy radiated by our entire Galaxy over a period of a couple of centuries. Scientists say it is possible that other forms of radiation from the burst, such as neutrinos or gravity waves, which are extremely difficult to detect, carried a hundred times more energy than that. NASA is planning two missions to further investigate gamma- ray bursts: the High Energy Transient Experiment II (HETE II), scheduled to launch in the fall of 1999, and the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), scheduled to launch in 2005. HETE II will be able to precisely locate gamma-ray bursts in near real- time and quickly transmit their locations to ground-based observatories, permitting rapid follow-up studies. GLAST will detect only those gamma-ray bursts that emit the highest energy gamma rays, and will be able to locate them with sufficient precision to permit coordinated observations from the ground. Because not much is known about the bursts at these high energies, the observations may permit researchers to choose among competing theories for the origin of gamma-ray bursts. - end - NOTE TO EDITORS: Images of the GRB 971214 field are available at: FTP://PAO.GSFC.NASA.GOV/newsmedia/GRB/ Information on the BeppoSAX spacecraft is available at: http://www.sdc.asi.it/ Information on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory is available at: http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/descriptions/cgro.html Information on Gamma Ray Bursts is available at: http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/nasm/VU/overview/bursts/bursts.html Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

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