Projects: Space Information
The Planetary Report
Volume XXVI, Number 4, July/August 2006
Credit: Courtesy of Boston University Center for Remote Sensing |
On the Cover
This color composite of multi-spectral Landsat images reveals a huge, previously
undetected crater in Egypt's western desert, near the border with Libya. The
outer rim of the double-ringed crater is 31 kilometers (about 19 miles) in
diameter, making it the largest crater-shaped feature in the Great Sahara of
North Africa.
From The Editor
It's been a nasty, hot summer here at Planetary Society headquarters in Pasadena,
California. The annual phenomenon known as June gloom, when late night and
early morning clouds keep the hot sun out and local temperatures down, was
absent this year. As we sit and sweat, or crowd air-conditioned buildings,
people are asking: Is this our future? Have we humans changed Earth's climate
unintentionally?
There's no way to answer such questions without science. Yet this summer,
we've also been fighting the biggest political battle in our organization's
history, as we struggle to save science in NASA's program.
While we lobby Congress to restore funds to science, we must fight a rearguard
action at the same time: people who say that studying other planets is expendable
science, because it doesn't help solve problems on our own world.
They couldn't be more wrong. In The Planetary Society, we know that. But how
do we convince people that our admittedly special-interest agenda is not a
self-serving one? For this issue of The Planetary Report, we asked eminent
Earth scientist Charles Kennel to consider if a strong NASA science program
is expendable.
You'll read his answer: "The science of Earth is needed as never before." Indeed,
it is inextricably linked to the science of other worlds. We fight to save
that.
--Charlene M. Anderson
Features
Don't Abandon Science at NASA
The achievements of NASA are all around us -- satellites that monitor our weather
and probe our oceans, detailed images of Mars' surface, views of deep space
from our space telescopes. Now, with growing urgency to replace the space
shuttle, science funding at NASA is in peril. Charles Kennel, director
of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, stresses that we need to commit
to a strong science program at NASA to better know our own planet and its
place in the cosmos.
Veiled Crater in the Eastern Sahara
In a surprising story that connects an amulet of King Tutankhamun, the harsh
Saharan desert, and a space rock, an answer emerges to a long-held mystery.
Noted geologist and Planetary Society member Farouk El-Baz and colleague Eman
Ghoneim tell their tale of discovering a massive impact crater on the
border of Egypt and Libya -- the largest known crater in the Sahara Desert.
The discovery is new, and The Planetary Society is following the story as
it unfolds.
Interstellar Dust: The Hunt for the Building Blocks of the Universe
When the Stardust capsule returned to Earth last January, it brought with it
our first-ever pristine samples of interstellar dust captured directly from
space. What do we know about this star stuff, and what do we hope to learn
from the newly returned samples? Will they tell us more about the Big Bang,
the formation of our solar system, and about ourselves? The Planetary Society's Amir
Alexander sheds some light on these elusive particles.
Departments
Members’ Dialogue
We Make It Happen!
World Watch
Questions and Answers
Society News
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