31. January 2008 by admin.

ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) is one of the five particle detector experiments (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, and LHCb) being constructed at the Large Hadron Collider, a new particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland. It will be 45 metres long and 25 metres in diameter, and will weigh about 7,000 tonnes. The project involves roughly 2,000 scientists and engineers at 151 institutions in 34 countries. The construction is scheduled to be completed in 2007. The experiment is expected to measure phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not measurable using earlier lower-energy accelerators and might shed light on new theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model.The ATLAS collaboration, the group of physicists building the detector, was formed in 1992 when the proposed EAGLE (Experiment for Accurate Gamma, Lepton and Energy Measurements) and ASCOT (Apparatus with Super COnducting Toroids) collaborations merged their efforts into building a single, general-purpose particle detector for the Large Hadron Collider. The design was a combination of those two previous designs, as well as the detector research and development that had been done for the Superconducting Supercollider.

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29. January 2008 by admin.

Computer model of the Apollo asteroid 6489 Golevka

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are asteroids whose orbits are close to Earth’s orbit. All near-Earth asteroids spend part of their orbits between 0.963 and 1.3 astronomical units away from the Sun.^[1] Some near-Earth asteroids’ orbits intersect Earth’s so they pose a collision danger.^[2] Near-Earth asteroids are comparatively easy to access for spacecraft from Earth; in fact, some can be reached with much less fuel than it takes to reach the Moon.^[3] This makes them an attractive target for exploration.^[4] Two near-Earth asteroids have been visited by spacecraft: 433 Eros, by NASA’s Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous probe,^[5] and 25143 Itokawa, by the JAXA Hayabusa mission.^[6] Near-Earth asteroids are a sub-class of near-Earth object.

Characteristics

Over 4,500 near-Earth asteroids are known, ranging in size up to ~32 kilometers (1036 Ganymed).^[7][8] The number of near-Earth asteroids over 1 km in diameter is estimated to be 500 - 1000.^[9][10] The composition of near-Earth asteroids is comparable to that of asteroids from the main asteroid belt, reflecting a variety of asteroid spectral types.^[11]

NEAs only survive in their orbits for a few million years.^[1] They are eventually eliminated by orbital decay and accretion by the Sun, collisions with the inner planets, or by being ejected from the solar system by near misses with the planets. With orbital lifetimes short compared to the age of the solar system, new asteroids must be constantly moved into near-Earth orbits to explain the observed asteroids. The accepted origin of these asteroids is that main belt asteroids are moved into the inner solar system through orbital resonances with Jupiter. The interaction with Jupiter through the resonance perturbs the asteroids orbit and it comes into the inner solar system. The asteroid belt has gaps, known as Kirkwood gaps, where these resonances occur as the asteroids in these resonances have been moved onto other orbits. New asteroids migrate into these resonances due to the Yarkovsky effect which provides a continuing supply of near-Earth asteroids.^[12]

[edit] NEA classification

A small fraction of near-Earth asteroids are extinct comets that have lost all their volatile constituents, and a few near-Earth asteroids still show faint comet-like tails. These near-Earth asteroids were probably derived from the Kuiper belt, a repository of comets residing beyond the orbit of Neptune. The rest of the near-Earth asteroids appear to be true asteroids, driven out of the asteroid belt by gravitational interactions with Jupiter.^[1][13]

There are three families of near-Earth asteroids:^[1]

• The Atens, which have average orbital radii closer than one astronomical unit (AU, the distance from the Earth to the Sun) and aphelia of greater than Earth’s perihelion (0.983 AU), placing them usually inside the orbit of Earth.
• The Apollos, which have average orbital radii greater than that of the Earth and perihelia less than less than Earth’s aphelion (1.017 AU).
• The Amors, which have average orbital radii in between the orbits of Earth and Mars and perihelia slightly outside Earth’s orbit (1.017 - 1.3 AU). Amors often cross the orbit of Mars, but they do not cross the orbit of Earth.

Many Atens and all Apollos have orbits which cross that of the Earth, so they are a threat to impact the Earth on their current orbits. Amors do not cross the Earth’s orbit and are not immediate impact threats, however their orbits may evolve into Earth-crossing orbits in the future.

Also sometimes used is the Arjuna asteroid classification for asteroids with extremely Earth-like orbits.^[14]

[edit] The NEA threat

[edit] Impact rate

Asteroids with diameters of 5-10m impact the Earth’s atmosphere approximately once per year, with as much energy as atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, approximately 15 kilotonnes of TNT. These ordinarily explode in the upper atmosphere, and most or all of the solids are vaporized.^[15] Objects of diameters of order 50 meters strike the Earth approximately once every thousand years, producing explosions comparable to the one observed at Tunguska in 1908.^[16]Asteroids with a diameter of one kilometer hit the Earth an average of twice every million year interval.^[1] Large collisions with five kilometer objects happen approximately once every ten million years.

[edit] Historic impacts

Illustration of the impact of an asteroid a few kilometers across. Such impacts are expected to occur less often than every 100 million years.

The general acceptance of the Alvarez hypothesis, explaining the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event as the result of a large asteroid or comet impact event, raised the awareness of the possibility of future Earth impacts with asteroids that cross the Earth’s orbit.^[16]

On 30 June 1908 a stony asteroid exploded over Tunguska with the energy of the explosion of 10 megatons of TNT. The explosion occurred at a height of 8.5 kilometers. The asteroid which caused the explosion has been estimated to have had a diameter of 45-70 meters.^[17]

On June 6, 2002 an object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collided with Earth. The collision occurred over the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Libya, at approximately 34°N 21°E and the object exploded in mid-air. The energy released was estimated (from infrasound measurements) to be equivalent to 26 kilotons of TNT, comparable to a small nuclear weapon.^[18]

[edit] Future impacts

Although there have been a few false alarms, a number of asteroids are definitely known to be threats to the Earth. Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA was lost after its discovery in 1950 since not enough observations were made to allow plotting its orbit, and then rediscovered on December 31, 2000. The chance it will impact Earth on March 16, 2880 during its close approach has been estimated as 1 in 300. This chance of impact for such a large object is roughly 50% greater than that for all other such objects combined between now and 2880.^[19] It has a diameter of about a kilometer.

[edit] Near misses

On March 23, 1989 the 300 meter (1,000-foot) diameter Apollo asteroid 4581 Asclepius (1989 FC) missed the Earth by 700,000 kilometers (400,000 miles) passing through the exact position where the Earth was only 6 hours before. If the asteroid had impacted it would have created the largest explosion in recorded history, thousands of times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba. It attracted widespread attention as early calculations had its passage being as close as 40,000 miles from the Earth, with large uncertainties that allowed for the possibility of it striking the Earth.^[20]

On March 18, 2004, LINEAR announced a 30 meter asteroid 2004 FH which would pass the Earth that day at only 42,600 km (26,500 miles), about one-tenth the distance to the moon, and the closest miss ever noticed. They estimated that similar sized asteroids come as close about every two years.^[21]

[edit] Projects to minimize the threat

Main articles: Planetary defense and asteroid deflection strategies

Astronomers have been conducting surveys to locate the NEAs. One of the best-known is the LINEAR which began in 1996. By 2004 LINEAR was discovering tens of thousands of objects each year and accounting for 65% of all new asteroid detections.^[22] LINEAR uses two one-meter telescopes and one half-meter telescope based in New Mexico.^[23]

Spacewatch, which uses 90 centimeter telescope sited at the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, updated with automatic pointing, imaging, and analysis equipment to search the skies for intruders, was set up in 1980 by Tom Gehrels and Dr. Robert S. McMillan of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, and is now being operated by Dr. McMillan. The Spacewatch project has acquired a 1.8 meter telescope, also at Kitt Peak, to hunt for NEAs, and has provided the old 90 centimeter telescope with an improved electronic imaging system with much greater resolution, improving its search capability.^[24]

Other near-earth asteroid tracking programs include Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT), Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS), Catalina Sky Survey, Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Objects Survey (CINEOS), Japanese Spaceguard Association, and Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey.^[25]

“Spaceguard” is the name for these loosely affiliated programs, some of which receive NASA funding to meet a U.S. Congressional requirement to detect 90% of near-earth asteroids over 1 km diameter by 2008.^[26] A 2003 NASA study of a follow-on program suggests spending US$250-450 million to detect 90% of all near-earth asteroids 140 meters and larger by 2028. ^[27]

Why asteroid impact probability goes up, then down.

Asteroid impact predictions often make the news. The next few observations show an increasing chance of impact, but then further observations rule out any impact. The reason for this pattern is shown in the diagram at the right. The ellipses in this diagram show the likely asteroid position at closest earth approach. At first, with only a few asteroid observations, the error ellipse is very large and includes the Earth. This leads to a small, but non-zero, impact probability. Further observations shrink the error ellipse, but it still includes the Earth. This raises the impact probability, since the Earth now covers a larger fraction of the error region. Finally, yet more observations (often radar observations, or discovery of a previous sighting of the same asteroid on archival images) shrink the ellipse still further. Now the earth is outside the error region, and the impact probability returns to near zero.^[28]

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17. January 2008 by admin.

Launch of MESSENGER.

The Boeing Delta II rocket carrying MESSENGER lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida at 02:15:56 EDT on August 3, 2004. An hour later, NASA confirmed that MESSENGER had successfully separated from the third stage booster and commenced its roundabout route to Mercury.

Travel to Mercury requires an extremely large velocity change, or delta-v, because Mercury lies deeper in the Sun’s gravity well; a spacecraft traveling to Mercury is greatly accelerated as it falls toward the Sun, so there must be a mechanism to slow it. Further, because Mercury does not have an atmosphere, it is impossible to aerobrake on arrival; the spacecraft must use rockets to slow down enough to go into orbit. To make the trip feasible, MESSENGER makes extensive use of gravity assist maneuvers. These reduce the energy (and thus fuel) requirements, but greatly prolong the trip. Finally, for additional fuel savings, the thrust used for insertion into orbit about Mercury will be minimized, resulting in a notably elliptical orbit. Besides the advantage of saving fuel, such an orbit allows the spacecraft to measure solar wind and magnetic fields at a variety of distances from the planet, yet still get close-up measurements and photographs of the surface.

MESSENGER performed a successful Earth swingby a year after launch, on 2 August 2005, with the closest approach at 19:13 UTC at an altitude of 2,347 kilometers (1,458 statute miles) over central Mongolia. On December 12, 2005, a 524 second long burn (’Deep-Space Maneuver’ or ‘DSM-1′) of the large thruster adjusted the trajectory for the upcoming Venus swing-by.^[1] MESSENGER made its first flyby of Venus at 08:34 UTC on October 24, 2006 at an altitude of 2,992 kilometers (1,859 mi). A second flyby of Venus was made at 23:08 UTC on June 5, 2007 at an altitude of 338 kilometers (210 mi). On October 17, 2007, ‘Deep-Space Maneuver-2′ or ‘DSM-2′ was executed successfully, putting MESSENGER on target for its first flyby of Mercury.^[2] MESSENGER made a flyby of Mercury on 14 January 2008 (closest approach 200 km above surface of Mercury at 19:04:39 UTC),^[3] and will make two more flybys of Mercury on October 6, 2008 and September 29, 2009, successively slowing down the spacecraft. Mercury orbit insertion will be on March 18, 2011, beginning a year-long orbital mission.

MESSENGER’s trajectory.

During the Earth flyby, MESSENGER imaged the Earth and Moon and used its atmospheric and surface composition spectrometer to look at the Moon. The particle and magnetic field instruments investigated the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The spacecraft was originally scheduled to launch during a 12-day window that opened May 11, 2004, but on March 26, 2004, NASA announced that a later launch window starting at July 30, 2004 with a length of 15 days would be used.^[4] This significantly changed the trajectory of the mission and will delay the arrival at Mercury by two years. The original plan called for three swingby maneuvers past Venus, with Mercury orbit insertion scheduled for 2009. The new trajectory features one Earth flyby, two Venus flybys, and three Mercury flybys before orbit insertion on March 18, 2011.

The navigation team is lead by KinetX, Inc. of Tempe, AZ. KinetX is the first private company to be responsible for navigation of a NASA deep space mission. In that role, they are responsible for determining all trajectory adjustments throughout the probe’s flight through the inner solar system ensuring that MESSENGER arrives at Mercury with the proper velocity for orbit insertion.

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