NEEP533 Course Notes (Fall 2001)
Resources from Space

News Flashes!

12/03/01		Collisions and gravitational reaccumulation is important to the formation of Asteroid families and their satellites (Michel, et al., 2001, Science, 294).
		More information on the dynamical preading of Asteroid families by the Yarkosky effect (Bottke, et al., 2001, Science, 294).
		The population of Near Earth Asteroids appears to be more highly inclined than previously estimated, and the total number of kilometer-sized [or greater] is ~1227 (Stuart, 2001, Science, 294).
		Martian dust storm of particles comparable to smoke particles is beginning to wane. It began in mid June and is the largest in more than two decades (Science News, 2001, 160).
		Newly discovered plants around other sun like stars resemble our own solar system more closely than most of the more than 80 such planets-star systems previously discovered (Science News, 2001, 160).
		Martian magnetic remanent magnetism defined in more detail, but still almost entirely confined to old, southern crust and suggests that for magnetic iron oxides to have been present, the early Martian environment was much wetster than today (Connerney, et al., 2001, Geophysical Research Letters, 28).
		Spin temperature of NH3 in Comet LINEAR suggests its formation was between the present orbits of Saturn and Uranus in the solar nebula (Kawakita, et al., 2001, Science, 294).
		"Fern spikes" in the abundance of plant spores are becoming an important indicator of nearly full plant extinctions after large impacts on the Earth and now have been identified outside of North America (New Zealand) relative to the Chicxulub impact (Vajda, et al., 2001, Science, 294).
		Chicxulub impact crater (dino killer) appears to have a one kilometer thick melt sheet, 100 km in diameter according to geophysical data and drilling. Disruption of the crust extends 35 km down to its base and on into the mantle (Christeson, et al., 2001, Journal of Geophysical Research, 106).
11/14/01		Leonid meteoroids hit the Moon.
11/12/01		Formation of the Milky Way galaxy detailed (American Scientist, v. 98, Nov.-Dec. 2001).
		Metorite shower fragements found in Swedish limestone that is 480 million years old (Science, v. 294, p. 27, Oct. 5, 2001).
		Deep Space 1 probe images Comet Borrelly, showing "geology" of the comet nucleus and several gas and dust jets from it (Science, v. 294, p. 27, Oct. 5, 2001).
		Beryllium-10 from the Sun detected in Apollo 17 soil (Science, v. 294, p. 352, Oct. 12, 2001).
		Speculations on the cometary origins of the Earth's biosphere (American Scientist, Sep.-Oct. 2001 and Letters in Nov.-Dec. issue).
		Addition confirmation of the equivalence of oxygen isotope abundances between the Earth and the Moon indicating their formation from the same reservoir in the solar nebula and that the isotopic heterogeneity between the Earth and the Moon relative to other elements was not created by impact accretion on the Moon (Science, v. 294, p. 345, Oct. 12, 2001).
		Jupiter and its moons mimic small solar system (Science, v. 294, p. 71, Oct. 5, 2001).
		Vinyl alcohol detected in gas and dust cloud near the center of the of the Milky Way Galaxy (Science News, v. 160, Oct. 27, 2001).
		Age of the Universe: a new determination - Cosmic microwave background analysis indicates age of universe is 14 billion years +/- 0.5 billion years rather than ~ 13 billion years deduced from uncertain measurements of the Hubble constant (Science News, v. 160, Oct. 27, 2001).
10/17/01		1. MARS: CHRONOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF MARS Proceedings from an ISSI workshop, 10-14 April 2000, Bern, Switzerland, edited by Reinald Kallenbach (International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland), J. Geiss (International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland), W.K. Hartmann (Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ, USA). Lots of papers directly related to Lectures 17 and 18 but I would not be surprised if most take a different tack on the evolution of Mars than did Prof. Schmitt. 2. New model shows sun was a hot young star rather than 30% less luminous than today as previously modeled. Science, 2001, vol. 293, p. 2188. 3. Important radioisotopic clock re-calibrated and pushes age of oldest known zircon crystals on Earth from 4.1 billion to 4.3 billion years. Science News, 2001, vol. 160, p. 127. Early zircons are a major area of research at Madison under Prof. John Valley and is one of the reasons to suspect that the water-rich melt sheets resulting from very large basin formation formed the seeds for the first continents on Earth. 4. What is the Moon made of? Short piece by Paul Spudis from a somewhat different perspective than Lectures 8 and 9. Science, 2001, vol. 293, p. 1779.

NEEP533 Syllabus

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News Flashes!