Next stop: the Moon

Andrew J Ball, Sarah K Dunkin and David J Heather report on optimistic and innovative ideas raised at the Fourth International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon, which resulted in a declaration reviewing the current state of lunar exploration and setting targets for future work.     

Eddington: leading the field

Sixty years after the death of Sir Arthur Eddington OM, FRS, the RAS held a Commemoration Meeting to recall his outstanding contributions to astronomy, cosmology and the popularization of science, organized by John D Barrow and Leon Mestel .     

Dublin days: the 2003 NAM

Mark E Bailey and Tom Ray give an overview of the National Astronomy Meeting in Dublin, where record numbers of astronomers went to talk, listen and network.     

William Gilbert: the first palaeomagnetist

William Gilbert first described the Earth as a giant dipole magnet 400 years ago. But, as Rod Wilson recounts, he did far more than this.     

SPICeD: imaging the deep Earth

Michael Kendall and George Helffrich respond to Alan Douglas's paper in the previous issue of Astronomy & Geophysics with a prototype three-component broadband seismic network for the UK.
There are two boundaries in the Earth's deep interior that are as significant in terms of contrast in material properties and dynamics as the lithosphere–atmosphere boundary, where we live. The natures of the core-mantle boundary and the inner-core/outer-core boundary have significant implications for the stability of the Earth's magnetic field, style of convection, moment of inertia and length of day. An array of broadband three-component seismometers (SPICeD) spanning Scotland, England and France has been deployed with the aim of studying these dramatic interfaces within the Earth. A secondary aim of the deployment was to install a working prototype for a permanent three-component broadband seismic network in the UK, as advocated by Alan Douglas in the previous issue of this journal (Douglas 2001).     

Restoring landscapes: the authenticity problem

Philosophical concerns about restoring landscapes often revolve around two, connected, issues. First is the idea that a restored landscape, even if it is a perfect replica, has lost some of its value. The claim might appeal to a break in the continuity of the landscape and that continuity is part of what is valuable. Alternatively, often in the case of natural landscapes, the appeal is that any human manipulation is inauthentic; here the analogy is sometimes made with the art world and the restoration is deemed a fake. The second problem highlighted in philosophical debates is that the greater the success of restoration projects, the more threatened natural landscapes become: any claim that something must be preserved in its pristine or historically layered state is undermined by the claim that it could be put back again. Initially I discuss two opposing potential responses to these claims: (1) that humans are part of nature and thus cannot be an alien dominating force outside of nature; and (2) that nature is itself a social construct. Neither of these positions is entirely satisfactory, but what they jointly reveal is the reality of our fluid and multifaceted relationship with the world. I then show that Elliot's claim of the additional value of pristine nature is actually not based on an inherent value, but is dependent on the human valuation of it. I propose an alternative that places the source of value in the thing itself and thus arrive at a positive role for restoration as the setting in train and guiding of positive relationships above and beyond their social or public amenity value to us. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mercury: the enigmatic innermost planet

The planet Mercury, a difficult object for study by astronomical observation and spacecraft exploration alike, poses multiple challenges to our general understanding of the inner planets. Mercury’s anomalously high uncompressed density implies a metal fraction of 60% or more by mass, an extreme outcome of planetary formational processes common to the inner solar system. Whether that outcome was the result of chemical gradients in the early solar nebula or removal by impact or vaporization of most of the silicate shell from a differentiated protoplanet can potentially be distinguished on the basis of the chemical composition of the present crust. Our understanding of the geological evolution of Mercury and how it fits within the known histories of the other terrestrial planets is restricted by the limited coverage and resolution of imaging by the only spacecraft to have visited the planet. The role of volcanism in Mercury’s geological history remains uncertain, and the dominant tectonic structures are lobate scarps interpreted as recording an extended episode of planetary contraction, issues that require global imaging to be fully examined. That Mercury has retained a global magnetic field when larger terrestrial planets have not stretches the limits of standard hydromagnetic dynamo theory and has led to proposals for a fossil field or for exotic dynamo scenarios. Hypotheses for field generation can be distinguished on the basis of the geometry of Mercury’s internal field, and the existence and size of a fluid outer core on Mercury can be ascertained from measurements of the planet’s spin axis orientation and gravity field and the amplitude of Mercury’s forced librations. The nature of Mercury’s polar deposits, suggested to consist of volatile material cold-trapped on the permanently shadowed floors of high-latitude impact craters, can be tested by remote sensing of the composition of Mercury’s surface and polar atmosphere. The extremely dynamic exosphere, which includes a number of species derived from Mercury’s surface, offers a novel laboratory for exploring the nature of the complex and changing interactions among the solar wind, a small magnetosphere, and a solid planet. Recent ground-based astronomical measurements and several new theoretical developments set the stage for the in-depth exploration of Mercury by two spacecraft missions within the coming decade.     

Rainfall estimation in the Sahel: the EPSAT-NIGER experiment

Abstract

EPSAT-NIGER (Estimation of Precipitation by SATellite—NIGER experiment) has been designed to improve the understanding of the precipitation systems of Sudano-Sahelian Africa and to develop operational rainfall estimation algorithms for this region. It is based on the combined use of a very dense raingauge network (93 gauges over a study area of 16 000 km₂) and a C-band weather radar system. The experiment is scheduled to last three years, 1990–1992. The network pattern, a regular grid with nodes spaced at 12.5 km and a 16 gauge target area where the distance between stations is decreased to 1 km, has allowed for some preliminary studies on the rainfall distribution at various space and time scales. Whereas the long term average rainfall gradient is uniform, rainfall increasing north to south, a single rainy season can be markedly different. The local variability may be extremely large. That variability is enhanced at smaller sampling time steps and the computation of reference areal rainfall for satellite imagery validation is extremely sensitive to the design of the ground-based validation system. The joint processing of gauge and radar data has led to the identification of a few typical features of the drop size distribution of the African squall lines, which could lead to deriving specific algorithms for radar calibration in this region. The data provided by EPSAT-NIGER will be used in various international projects for the assessment of water input from the atmosphere to the continent over the Sahel.     

Spitzer: the first 30 months

In his George Darwin Lecture, Michael Werner celebrates the achievements of the Spitzer Space Telescope, an observatory that owes much of its success to the fact that it is cool by design.     

AstroGrid: Powering the virtual universe

Nic Walton describes a programme to break down wavelength barriers and empower astronomers, as well as making full use of astronomical archives.
The full potential of the data from the major new observational facilities (e.g. VISTA) available to the community will only be realized if inclusive, rich, data access and manipulation mechanisms are provided. Astronomical endeavour will be further leveraged if these mechanisms enable "science-driven" research programmes benefiting from access to multiple data sources. I describe here the reasons and resources behind AstroGrid.     

Study of the air-sea interactions at the mesoscale: the SEMAPHORE experiment

The SEMAPHORE (Structure des Echanges Mer-Atmosphère, Propriétés des Hétérogénéités Océaniques: Recherche Expérimentale) experiment has been conducted from June to November 1993 in the Northeast Atlantic between the Azores and Madeira. It was centered on the study of the mesoscale ocean circulation and air-sea interactions. The experimental investigation was achieved at the mesoscale using moorings, floats, and ship hydrological survey, and at a smaller scale by one dedicated ship, two instrumented aircraft, and surface drifting buoys, for one and a half month in October-November (IOP: intense observing period). Observations from meteorological operational satellites as well as spaceborne microwave sensors were used in complement. The main studies undertaken concern the mesoscale ocean, the upper ocean, the atmospheric boundary layer, and the sea surface, and first results are presented for the various topics. From data analysis and model simulations, the main characteristics of the ocean circulation were deduced, showing the close relationship between the Azores front meander and the occurrence of Mediterranean water lenses (meddies), and the shift between the Azores current frontal signature at the surface and within the thermocline. Using drifting buoys and ship data in the upper ocean, the gap between the scales of the atmospheric forcing and the oceanic variability was made evident. A 2 °C decrease and a 40-m deepening of the mixed layer were measured within the IOP, associated with a heating loss of about 100 W m⁻². This evolution was shown to be strongly connected to the occurrence of storms at the beginning and the end of October. Above the surface, turbulent measurements from ship and aircraft were analyzed across the surface thermal front, showing a 30% difference in heat fluxes between both sides during a 4-day period, and the respective contributions of the wind and the surface temperature were evaluated. The classical momentum flux bulk parameterization was found to fail in low wind and unstable conditions. Finally, the sea surface was investigated using airborne and satellite radars and wave buoys. A wave model, operationally used, was found to get better results compared with radar and wave-buoy measurements, when initialized using an improved wind field, obtained by assimilating satellite and buoy wind data in a meteorological model. A detailed analysis of a 2-day period showed that the swell component, propagating from a far source area, is underestimated in the wave model. A data base has been created, containing all experimental measurements. It will allow us to pursue the interpretation of observations and to test model simulations in the ocean, at the surface and in the atmospheric boundary layer, and to investigate the ocean-atmosphere coupling at the local and mesoscales.     

On the fast movements of the thermosphere: an interpretation

We examine the oscillations of the meridional neutral wind in the F region as seen by the EISCAT radar. We propose an interpretation in term of eddies (tourbillons) of typical size of a few tens to a few hundreds of kilometers. The observed rotation velocity is a few hundreds of meters per second. We suggest that the tourbillons are a common feature of thermospheric movements. We propose an optical experiment to check the validity of this assumption.     

Microseisms: Its dependence on the movement of the source

Summary The displacements on the free surface of a homogeneous isotropic semi-infinite medium has been obtained assuming a moving normal stress on the surface. It has been studied how the displacements behave with (1) the direction of propagation of the source with respect to the recording station and (2) the velocity of the source.