Science monitor
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NEW INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

DUEL IN THE SUN
Earth was recently blasted by one of the most extreme magnetic storms of the current 11-year solar cycle and by the worst solar radiation storm since 1991. The storms caused problems for satellites, blacked out radio communications for commercial fishing boats and made the northern lights visible at mid-latitudes, including Europe and the United States. Both storms resulted from a major solar flare that erupted on July 14 from an active sunspot region. Within 20 minutes, the flare started blasting space around Earth with an intense barrage of protons known as a solar radiation storm. The flare also triggered a mass ejection of electrified gas from the sun’s outer atmosphere, hurling the material toward Earth, triggering a geomagnetic storm that reached category G5, or extreme levels, over high and mid-latitudes later in the day.

TAPPING THE MOON
A SOLUTION to world energy woes and rising gasoline prices might require looking off Earth at our nearest celestial neighbour — the moon. Power-beaming satellites have been advocated for a number of years as a way for energy-hungry Earthlings to develop new sources of power to meet needs in the 21st century. At the moon, Earth already has a heavenly equivalent to a wall plug, says David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston in Texas. ‘‘By mid 21st century, enough lunar solar power can be imported Earthward to supply the world’s population of 10 billion people to meet all basic human needs’’ he said. Hundreds of pounds of lunar samples have been studied, showing great potential for manufacturing.

KILLER ROCK DETECTIVES
At any moment, Planet Earth could be menaced by potentially devastating asteroids. Although we may not be able to avoid getting hit, the Spacewatch Project could at least warn of us an approaching asteroid. Now being built is a 72-inch (1.8-meter) diameter telescope, to be situated near the currently working Spacewatch telescope, it will make it the largest telescope in the world dedicated full-time to that exclusive purpose, informs Robert McMillan, director of the Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. ‘‘Right now, we’re finding, on average, about two near Earth asteroids per month,’’ McMillan said. With the new telescope, along with new electronic devices outfitted to the existing telescope, ‘‘we should be discovering objects much faster, perhaps as many as 20 per month,’’ he said. The main goal of Spacewatch is to spot comets and asteroids that might be potentially dangerous objects, well before they pose a threat to Earth. These big bruisers have bombarded Earth before and they will wallop the planet again. It’s just a matter of when, Spacewatch officials admit.

GROUND BENEATH THE SEA
A computer simulation of the continental shelf 100 miles off the coast of New Jersey suggests that there may be pockets of water trapped under great pressure deep beneath the ocean floor. The study concluded that if such pressurised deposits of water exist, they could pose a threat of sudden undersea landslides. Researchers theorise that the water could be trapped deep in sediments on the edge of the continental shelf, a place on the sea bottom that is rather like the edge of a mountain top. In that area, the sea bottom drops steeply from a few hundred feet beneath the sea surface to several thousand. High pressure water trapped in the sediment could be released in a surge, or the water could seep out slowly, relieving the pressure.

THE STAR DEMOLITION ZONE
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of a star demolition zone, located in a small portion of the Crescent nebula. The nebula lies some 4,700 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. Scientists working with this particular nebula say that this latest image will help them better understand the evolution of stars and nebulae. ‘‘Nebulae associated with massive stars tell you a lot about the ecology of star-forming regions,’’ said Brian D. Moore of Arizona State University. This false-color image depicts what’s left of a thin shell of gas, dust and other particles that at one point closely surrounded a central star. The shell of material, or the Crescent nebula, is slowly expanding and becoming shredded into filaments, as a massive solar wind continues to push the nebula’s material beyond its former boundaries.

PEERING INTO BLACK HOLES
Researchers are drafting plans for a fleet of spacecraft to capture the most detailed images yet of mysterious black holes. These stealthy objects — collapsed stars so dense that not even light can escape their gravity — have been seen only indirectly, by the destruction they have wrought in gobbling gas and dust from nearby stars. Now researchers believe they have a way to study the maws of these galactic cannibals by using a circular constellation of spacecraft designed to peer into the depths of black holes. Called the Micro-Arcsecond X-ray Imaging Mission or MAXIM, the program would study the X-rays that shoot out from the swirling matter or ‘‘accretion disk’’ that falls into a black hole.

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