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The Planetary Report !-' Volume XIX Number 6 November/December 1999 Volume XIX On the Cover: The spring eq uinox for Mars' sou thern hemisphere arrived Table of Number 6 August 2, 1999, br in gi ng in the warm seasons of the yea r. The frosts of the southern polar cap began to retreat. As summer Contents Novem ber/December 1999 approached, so did the Mars Polar Lander (MPL), scheduled to touch down near the edge of the frost cap on December 3. What will MPL fi nd? We don't know yet, but the lander may encounter dust storms, which freque ntly blow in th is regio n. In this image, take n in late July, we see grayish-orange du st Features clouds just above the frost cap at the lower left. Image: Malin Space Science Systems/NASA 4 An Intervievv With Tim Ferris Does life exist on other worlds? How do we find it? Ifwe find it, how do we study or communicate with it? Science writer Tim Ferris addresses these questions in a new Public Broadcasting System television series about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, He shares some of hi s thoughts with The Planetary Report. Froln Over One Million Served: The 5 SETI@home Passes the Million Mark SETI@home is definitely the biggest research project The Planetary Society has ever been Editor involved with-and it just keeps getting bigger. Have you joined yet? t's hard to explore planets, really hard. 6 Assessing the Hazard: Those of us of a certain age remember The Development of the Torino Scale I How do you convey the approximate degree of danger posed by a passing asteroid to someone John F. Kennedy, explaining that we chose only barely aware that giant rocks hurtle by Earth every day? This is a major problem faced to go to the Moon precisely because it was by researchers who want to alert people to the danger but don't want to overplay the hazard hard to do. That made the accomplishment or sensationalize their scientific work. Long-time Planetary Society friend Rick Binzel has all the more remarkable and satisfying. tackled the problem. Looking back at the triumph of the Moon missions and other missions that took us 12 Mars Polar Lander-Countdovvn to Touchdovvn far beyond our little planet, we often forget Here it comes! December 3 will soon be here, and we're eagerly awaiting the the failures that became stepping stones to arrival of the Mars Polar Lander on the Red Planet. The spacecraft carries the Mars other worlds. Lost spacecraft, named Ranger, Microphone, developed by The Planetary Society, so this mission is particularly close to Mariner, Venera, Mars, and Phobos, litter our hearts. the solar system-robots that have crashed, The Second Corning of NEAR missed their targets, or simply vanished. 14 Last year we watched as the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous missed its orbit But space explorers have persevered. around Eros. But after another swing through the solar system, NEAR is returning to its As I write this, scientists and engineers target and will soon begin its mission to study that hunk of rock in depth. If all goes well, who work on the Mars Polar Lander­ the spacecraft may even attempt to "land" on the asteroid. including some Planetary Society staffers - are scrambling to rebound from the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and its com­ Departlnents munications link. Mission sequences must be reexamined, reevaluated, and rewritten. 3 Members' Dialogue But the mission will go on, valuable data 11 World Watch will be returned to Earth, and we will live through another hair-raising approach, 20 Questions and Ansvvers entry, landing, and deployment. At Planetfest '99, we will celebrate 22 Society Nevvs Mars Polar Lander, Galileo, and the new millennium. We will hear sounds collected by our own Mars Microphone. We will exult in our accomplishment. I hope you will join us, either in Pasadena or on the Contact Us Internet (planetary.org), and we will exult Mailing Address: Th e Planetary Society, 65 No rth Catalina Avenue, Pasadena , CA 91106-2301 in doing what is hard. General Calls: 626-793-5100 Sales Calls Only: 626 -7 93 -1 675 - Charlene M. Anderson E- mai l: tps@ planetary. org Wo rld Wide Web: http://planetary.o rg T!a~~~~~~6t~~~~~~~~1~7~ff6~~~~~J~b~.b:~s~e~V~i~~7~h~~ a~~h~~~;~o~f~~~c~I~~~T:r~ ~~~f~f? ;~~~~1 ' d6u5e~i~~h~a~~n:r:$~n5ue . (US doliars); In Canada, $35 (Canadial} dollars). Dues in other countries are $40 (US dollars). Prrnted In USA. Third-class postage at Pasadena, California, and at an additional mailing office. Canada Post Agreement Number 87424. A ___ M , Editor. CHARLENE M. ANDERSON Technical Editor, JAMES D. BURKE Associate Editor, DONNA ESCANDON STEVENS Copy Editor, KARL STULL SOCIETV Assistant Editor, JENNIFER VAUGHN Proofreader, LOIS SMITH THE-PL.A~T1RV Art Director, BARBARA S. SMITH Viewpoints expressed in columns or editorials are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent positions of The Planetary Society, o .~ -e- ¢ -e- 0 its officers, or advisors. ©1999 by The Planetary Society. o Co-founder CARL SAGAN Members' 1934·1996 Board of Directors l Dialogue BRUCE MURRAY Pre si dent Professor of Planetary Science and Geology, California Institute of Technology LAUREL l. WILKENING Vice President former Chancellor, University of California, Irvine LOUIS o. fRIEOMAN Watching the Clock These early versions of "clocks" that sometimes a couple ofyea rs Executive Director ANN DRUYAN I enjoyed Owen Gingerich's article were not of the conventional modem pass with no additional second, and, author and producer OONALO J. KUTYNA in the July!August 1999 issue of type. They were called clepsydra very occasionally, there are two former Commander, US Space Command The Planetary Report. It was fasci­ (water clock) and were usually extra seconds in a year, one at the CHRISTOPHER P. McKAY planetary sclenlist, NASA Ames Research Center nating to learn how our calendar made of bronze. (There is still one end ofJune and the other at the BILL NYE was established. such clepsydra on display in the end ofDecember. During the 1990s educator JOSEPH RYAN Regarding the millennium issue, Imperial Palace in Beijing.) the average has been closer to one Executive Vice PresIdent and General Counsel, Marriott International I agree that formally the start of Humble village dwellers, though, second added every 18 months, ROALO Z. SAG OEEV former Director, Institute for Space Research, the next millennium is January 1, had to rely on their own diurnal and none at all will have been Russian Academy of Sciences 2001. However, I think it would be instincts. Small towns and cities added in 1999. STEVEN SPIELBERG director and producer utterly stupid to insist on celebrat­ had timekeepers who traversed the - Owen Gingerich KATHRYN O. SULLIVAN President and CEO, ing on this date (especially since, as roadways on foot to announce the Ohio's Center of Science and Industry Gingerich reminds us, we're cele­ change of day-segment with the Praise for Planetfest and former astronaut NEIL OE GRASSE TYSON brating the 2000th anniversary of a help of small drums. I was a volunteer at Planetfests '97 Director, Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History nonevent!) and would ask those who But, as with the ancient Egyptians, and '89. Looking back, I thought advocate this the following question: interest in these long-obsolete it would be hard to top Voyager 2's Advisory Council JOHN M. LOGSOON when did you celebrate the begin­ modes of Chinese timekeeping spectacular 1989 encounter with Chairman Director, Space Polley InStitute, ningofthe '90s- January I , 1991? now only resides in the realm of Neptune-liquid nitrogen geysers George Washington University DIANE ACKERMAN Do you think that 1980 was the last historians. on Triton, the fastest winds in the poet and author year ofthe '70s or the first year of -MICHAEL CHUI, solar system, and Chuck Berry JIHEI AKITA Ex8C1Jtive Director, The Planetary Society, Japan the '80s? Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada at the wrap party on the Jet BUZZ ALORIN - ANDREAS EKHOLM, Propulsion Lab Mall! Meeting Apollo 11 astronaut RICHARO BERENOZEN Tucson, Arizona In "Why Is the Day 24 Hours, and Charley Kohlhase and Ed Stone educator and astrophysicist JACQUES BLAMONT When Will the Millennium Begin?" was terrific. Chief Scientist, Owen Gingerich's opinion piece Owen Gingerich states, "On But, with Mars Pathfinder, I Centre National d'Etudes Spatiafes, France RAY BRADBURY "Why Is the Day 24 Hours ..." is December 31 , an extra second will was seeing the beginnings of our poet and author no doubt well researched. Yet I be added before midnight, so don't grasp catching up with our reach. OAVIO BR IN author was disappointed that he made no celebrate early!" Watching the robot Sojourner FRANKLIN CHANG-DiAl reference to timekeeping by ancient I asked Raymond Pelletier of trundling around the Martian sur­ NASA, Astronaut Office ARTH UR C. CLARKE Chinese people-which took place the National Research Council of face at our command took us to a author FRANK DRAKE before the mechanical clock was Canada's Institute for National whole new level of knowing the President, SET! Institute; Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, introduced by western missionaries Measurement Standards about this place, and each time we go back, University of California, Santa Cruz STEPHEN JAY GOULO during the Ming dynasty (1368 to because he set up and administers we get to know it a little better. Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, 1644 AD). our millennium countdown clocks. This December, we will see Mars' Harvard University GARRY E.
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