India expresses interest in Mars mission
Media Release
Jan. 17, 2006
/Users/user/Desktop/6485_320.jpg
After the Moon mission, India wants to reach out to Mars and the government is keen to jump into a possible global bandwagon for this potentially exciting planetary exploration.
Indian Space Research Organization Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the US and Europe appear to favour a global partnership in this context, and India would be more than willing to be a partner in this huge exercise.
"For the mankind, the next interesting thing (after Moon) is Mars. Already there are indications that (the planet is) more inhabitable...[ellipsis as received] and so on", Nair told reporters. "To reach there and make an investigation is a big challenge. After the Moon, Mars could be logical step".
India has proposed an unmanned scientific mission to Moon (Chandrayaan-I) in early 2008. The 525 kg satellite is planned to be launched on board India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and placed in 100 km polar orbit around the moon. It will have a life-time of two years.
On Mars, he said there were many countries looking forward to reach Mars in the 2010-2015 time frame. "My personal opinion is we should not be left behind in the race".
According to him, the US and Europe have suggested a global partnership for planetary explorations.
"If planetary explorations become an international theme, it benefits all. We (India) will welcome such a move (global partnership) from any quarter", Madhavan, who is also the secretary in the Department of Space said.
The ISRO chairman said the Indian space agency is not shying away from manned mission to Moon.
"It's not a question of shying away. Whether we need it (manned mission to Moon) immediately...[ellipsis as received] that debate is going on. Opinion is truely divided. Some people believe that the instruments themselves are more than adequate...[ellipsis as received] robots can do the job and so on. A few others believe it (manned mission) is a national pride and we should do it.
"We are also subjecting this for an internal review as well as in various professional bodies. May be in the course of a year, we will have better clarity on that (whether or not India should go for a manned mission)," he said.
"If we decide to do such a job, yes, we will gear up for facing such a challenge".
Asked if ISRO has plans to go in for a manned mission, after the unmanned Moon one, Nair said manned mission is going to be very expensive and one has to do cost-benefit analysis. "So, when all this analysis is complete and if there is a positive edge on that (manned mission), we will do it".
Nair also said it's not the fear of failure that's holding back ISRO on manned mission.
"Any ISRO mission is of that kind, very very complex. We have got rockets with hundreds of sub-systems. Satellites with equal complexities in terms of computer and power...Risk has to be taken. In any field there is a finite chance of failure. We have to take risk".
He also said ISRO, at the same time, is also studying technologies associated with manned mission.
On China's manned missions to Moon, Nair said he believed India's neighbour would have got technologies for it from Russia.
Source: IndiaDaily.com
High Energy Particles
Cosmic rays are not the only sign of high energy particles in the distant universe. Additional evidence comes (like most astronomical data) from visible light and other types of electromagnetic waves, e.g. x-rays and radio waves.
Such waves usually arise in one of two ways--by "photon processes" and by processes resembling the broadcasting of radio waves.
Photon Processes
Photon processes are related to the quantum nature of light, discovered only in the 20th century, by which light or any other electromagnetic wave is only created or absorbed in definite "energy packets" called photons. The shorter the wavelength, the more energetic the photon--for instance, since blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light, its photons are more energetic. Certain black-and-white films can be safely handled in photographic darkrooms illuminated by deep red light, because the red photons do not carry enough energy to initiate the chemical changes that darken the film.
Photons of visible light have about 2 electron volts (ev), while medical x-ray photons may have energies of 50,000 ev and those of gamma rays reach 1,000,000 ev and even more. The arrival of (say) 50,000 ev x-ray photons from space is evidence of particles with at least that much energy, often much more, since each photon comes from a single particle. No process exists by which, for instance, ten electrons with 5000 ev each combine their energy to create a single photon of 50,000 ev.
Celestial x-rays cannot be observed from the ground, because the atmosphere quickly absorbs them. They can however reach satellite observatories orbiting above the atmosphere, and several of those have mapped the x-ray sky--the small Uhuru and the larger Einstein observatory, both launched by NASA, and more recently the very successful European ROSAT whose name (Roentgen-satellite) honors the discoverer of x-rays. Some x-ray sources seem associated with strange binary stars and black holes, others still puzzle us, but all suggest a source of high-energy particles.
The X-rays used by the doctor to spot broken bones and impacted teeth are valuable because they penetrate matter, the way light penetrates a windowpane. To produce sharp images of X-ray stars in the sky, on the other hand, X-rays must be focused. It seems like an impossible task, but it isn't--because when X-rays strike a surface at a flat angle, they are reflected, same as light off a mirror. Like a flat stone tossed at the surface of water, they bounce off when they hit at a shallow angle, but go through if the angle is too steep. That too was the design principle of the orbiting Chandra, named for Subramanian Chandrasekhar, an Indian astronomer who became one of the leaders and oustanding teachers of the US astronomy community.
The "Chandra" orbiting X-ray telescope was launched from the Space Shuttle on July 23, 1999, and it focuses X-rays from a series of ring-shaped mirrors. Imagine you cut off the tread of a tire, to produce a ring with a curved cross section. The "Chandra" telescope has metal focusing surfaces shaped like the inside of this ring, and by shallow reflections they bring X-rays to a focus.
Gamma Ray Bursts
Of all the high-energy photons beamed at us by the universe, probably none are more puzzling than those emitted in gamma ray bursts. In the 1960s the US launched a series of spacecraft with accurately timed gamma-ray detectors, to monitor nuclear tests in space and later to enforce the international ban on such tests. The idea was that by having several well-separated satellites note the exact arrival times of the radiation (gamma rays travel at the speed of light) the sources of radiation could be pin-pointed.
[All that is involved is a trigonometric calculation: the 24-satellite network of the "Global Positioning System" (GPS) uses somewhat similar principles, with the travel time of radio waves from a set of orbiting satellites pin-pointing positions on the ground. These satellites, at distances of 4.1 Earth radii, continually broadcast their precise locations, and these can be read by small portable receivers, relatively inexpensive. Using a built-in computer, these receivers then derive their own precise position on the ground, within 10-50 meters. Russia operates its own system, GLONASS, and European countries are planning a third one. For more details, see here.]
The spacecraft indeed observed brief bursts of gamma rays, but the timing suggested that they came not from Earth but from deep space. Later some fairly accurate "fixes" were obtained for a few events and powerful telescopes were trained on the indicated locations, but they saw nothing remarkable there.
There exists no generally accepted explanation for gamma ray bursts. Some promising theories were abandoned when NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite (CGRO) found in 1991 that they seemed to occur equally in all directions. Had they originated in our own galaxy, they would have probably been concentrated in the direction of the Milky Way, where most of our galaxy's stars are found (the galaxy is a flattened disk, and when we look at the Milky Way we see it edge-on). The new evidence suggests that they could come instead from distant galaxies, and if so, their sources must be incredibly powerful.
Locating the Sources of Bursts
On March 2, 1997, the Dutch-Italian satellite BeppoSAX ("Beppo" was the nickname of the late Italian physicist Ochialini, after whom the orbiting observatory was named) reported a gamma-ray burst, and turned its x-ray telescope to the region. The X-ray telescope reported a continuing source of X-rays, and NASA's orbiting Hubble telescope (as well as the Keck Observatory on the ground) observed a visible "star" at the appropriate location, probably a distant galaxy. So far no definite conclusions have emerged (see Nature, 17 April 1997, p. 650). Since then, other sources were identified visually, some by amateurs. (Update 11-24-04)
The riddle of the source of gamma ray bursts led astronomers to design and build a space observatory, designed to pin down and observe the source of bursts within seconds. That observatory was launched by NASA on November 20, 2004, under the name SWIFT, and at its heart if BAT, the Burst Alert Telescope, a gamma-ray detector covering 1/6 the sky and capable of deriving (within 10-20 seconds) the position of a gamma-ray burst, within 1-4 minutes of arc. It orbits about 600 km above the ground.
That position will be transmitted to ground observatories which--weather and position on the globe permitting--will immediately turn to the indicated location. Meanwhile SWIFT itself will orient itself, using momentum wheels, so that its two telescopes will also observe that spot--an X-ray telescope (XRT) and one in ultra-violet and visible light (UVOT). The X-ray detector will derive a spectrum in about 20 minutes, and will at other times conduct a survey of sources of "hard" (high-energy) X-rays, with a sensitivity 20 times of the best earlier observations. UVOT has a 30-cm wide telescope and sensitive detectors; using filters, it will go through a 2-hour cycle after an event. SWIFT can also be rotated on command to observe a gamma-ray burst seen by another satellite in a different part of the sky.
Magnetars and Bursts (added 4 March 2005)
In addition to the "ordinary" variety of gamma ray bursts, originating in distant galaxies, there exist brief bursts which may originate closer to home, in our own galaxy. One of those, surprisingly powerful, reached Earth on December 27, 2004. It was intense enough to saturate most detectors aboard "Swift," described above, and it lasted about half a second, but its effect on the ionosphere above the Pacific Ocean interfered with communications for about an hour. About 15 satellites around Earth detected it.
The source of this burst was pulsar SGR 1806-20, already being monitored because of its strong magnetic field. Pulsars are remnants of supernova events, the collapse of massive stars which have used up all their nuclear fuel. Such a star, if is massive enough (our Sun apparently does not qualify) enters a rapid runaway nuclear reaction, which drains almost all their gravitational energy, a huge amount. It leaves behind a "neutron star" a few kilometers across, a rapidly rotating assembly of neutrons with a density like that of an atomic nucleus and a mass of the order of the Sun's.
In the compression process, any magnetic field present can get greatly amplified. As explained elsewhere, in a plasma which conducts electricity well (as it does in a collapsing star) magnetic field lines behave as if they were "frozen" into the material which they permeate. If that material gets compressed, the same lines occupy a smaller space at greater density, which means, the magnetic field becomes much more intense. For example, if the dimensions of the field decrease 10,000 fold, the cross-section of any "tube" formed by magnetic field lines shrinks 100 million times, and the magnetic field inside the tube becomes 100 million times more intense.
The star SGR 1806-20 apparently had a respectable magnetic field when it began collapsing, and as a result, it ended as a neutron star with an enormously intense magnetic field, a "magnetar". Such stars in our galaxy (about 10 are known) sometimes emit gamma ray bursts. This one had previously emitted small bursts, and two appreciable events were recorded in 1979 and 1998, but the latest one outdid them by about a factor of 100.
How the gamma rays were produced can only be guessed, but magnetic energy must be involved--it also seems to be associated with to the acceleration of particles on the Sun, and particle acceleration is probably essential to the production of gamma rays. Some believe that stressed magnetic field lines, twisted by rotation (which is also enormously amplified when a star collapses) managed to suddenly "unwind" to some extent, like an overly wound-up spring working loose. The star is about 50,000 light years from Earth, and astrophysicists are beginning to wonder whether some short gamma ray bursts, detected from distant galaxies, might not represent similar events there.
Further Notes: This event was described in the "New York Times" on 2-20-2005 and on p.1178 of the issue of "Science" of 2-25-2005.
A more detailed and technical discussion of this event is in the article "Record Gamma-Ray Flare Is Attributed to a Hypermagnetized Neutron Star in Our Galaxy" by Bertram Schwartzschild on page 19 of the May 2005 isssue of "Physics Today."
Scientists will find interesting information in 5 articles in the 28 April 2005 issue of "Nature, p. 1098-1114.
The December event is also discussed here.
For an earlier discussion of magnetars in our galaxy, see here, including references to a previous event on 27 August 1998, originating at an estimated distance of 20,000 light years.
Radio Waves
The other mode resembles the broadcast of radio waves from an antenna. A radio antenna carries a rapidly alternating current which flows back-and-forth along it, and the back-and-forth motion (viewed from the side) of an energetic particle, when it spirals around a magnetic field line, acts the same way. ("Photon laws" apply here too, but because the photons are quite small, the "antenna viewpoint" may be used.)
Radio waves from space were discovered accidentally in 1932 by Karl Jansky, a radio engineer with the Bell Labs. Since then many radio telescopes have scanned the skies and have discovered remarkable sources of radio and microwaves. Often they seem to indicate high-energy particles; for instance, some sources associated with distant galaxies suggest particles trapped in enormous magnetic structures. Some come from the center of our own galaxy, where linked radio telescopes thousands of miles apart have pinpointed an extremely compact source, now identified as a giant black hole.
Perhaps the best known sources of this class are pulsars, sources of radio pulses whose repetition rate is extremely regular. They seem to be "neutron stars," collapsed remnants left behind by supernova explosions, stars as massive as the Sun but as dense as the atomic nucleus, no larger than 8-10 miles across. The collapse also greatly amplifies any existing magnetic field and speeds up enormously the star's rotation, creating compact stars which rotate about once a second, sometimes faster, with extraordinary strong magnetic fields.
It is believed that the radio pulses come from particles spiraling in those fields and that they are beamed in directions dictated by magnetic field lines. Thus as the pulsar rotates its radio beam, like the light-beam of a lighthouse, sweeps again and again past the Earth. The pulsing rate has been observed to decrease very slowly, suggesting processes which gradually slow the rotation down.
The Crab Nebula
The most recent supernova in the Earth's part of the galaxy was observed in China in 1054. It left behind it a peculiarly looking glowing cloud, the Crab Nebula, whose central star was recently revealed as a very rapid pulsar, with a radio signal pulsing about 30 times a second; it also pulses in visible light and in x-rays. The light of the nebula itself is polarized (vibrating in a certain ordered way), again suggesting electrons of very high energy spiraling in a magnetic field, and the nebula also contains many bright filaments (picture), which might well be magnetic in origin.
Theorists have speculated that the only way particles can escape the powerful magnetic trap--and radiate signals as they do--would be along the rotation axis, which by necessity is also the magnetic axis. The image on the right, taken of the Crab nebula by the orbiting "Chandra" telescope (see above) seems to fully confirm that view.
Closer to Home
High-energy electrons in the magnetosphere also emit x-rays and radio waves, in their own style. Positive ions, being heavier, tend to move more slowly and to radiate less efficiently.
To produce x-rays or gamma rays, electrons must collide with some more massive target. In a doctor's x-ray machine, for instance, they are shot onto a chunk of metal, inside a vaccum tube (electrons hitting the screen of a TV picture tube also produce x-rays, but these are absorbed by the glass). Out in space collisions are very few, but x-rays are produced when beams of auroral electrons hit the atmosphere.
In 1957 instruments of the University of Minnesota, carried by a balloon to the upper fringes of the atmosphere, detected x-rays emitted by auroral electrons many tens of miles above them. The recent "Polar " satellite carries an x-ray imager, highlighting regions in which auroral electrons are particularly energetic. The pictures produced are much less detailed than the ones in visible and ultra-violet light, from the other auroral imagers on "Polar." These latter images are particularly useful when the satellite is far from Earth, because their images then cover the entire polar cap; but rather detailed x-ray pictures have been obtained from the other end of the orbit, when "Polar" sweeps down, observing the auroral region at close range.
Many different types of radio emissions are generated by ions and electrons trapped in the magnetosphere, but few can be detected from the Earth's surface, because the ionosphere, at 100-300 km above our heads, usually reflects them back into space, just as it reflects back to Earth broadcasts of short-wave radio stations. However, in July 1962 a high-altitude nuclear test by the US created a dense temporary radiation belt of fast electrons, and radio noise from the new belt was then detected on the ground.
Even earlier, in 1955, strange radio signals were found to come from the planet Jupiter, greatly puzzling radio astronomers. The source turned out to be the planet's immense radiation belt. The fact that some of the emissions were found to be controlled by the position of the satellite Io is probably related to the electrical currents linking Io to Jupiter. The space probes which have visited Jupiter--Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, Ulysses and most recently Galileo--have observed at close hand many types of radio waves, beamed in interesting modes which still defy explanation. The first four went on to Saturn, and Voyager 2 continued to Uranus and Neptune, all of which were found to be magnetized, have radiation belts and emit radio waves. The solar system thus has magnetosphere beyond the Earths, waiting to be explored, differing from ours by the presence of moons and rings and by other features.
Satellites orbiting outside the Earth's ionosphere record a veritable "zoo" of radio emissions, not all of them understood. Most intense is the "auroral kilometric radiation" originating above the aurora ("kilometric" is the order of magnitude of its wavelength, below the AM radio band). The "antenna processes" by which these waves originate are profoundly affected by the surrounding plasma and by the way it interacts with the magnetic field. Such waves therefore provide valuable information about magnetospheric plasmas.
Author and Curator: Dr. David P. Stern
Mail to Dr.Stern: education@phy6.org
Co-author: Dr. Mauricio Peredo
Such waves usually arise in one of two ways--by "photon processes" and by processes resembling the broadcasting of radio waves.
Photon Processes
Photon processes are related to the quantum nature of light, discovered only in the 20th century, by which light or any other electromagnetic wave is only created or absorbed in definite "energy packets" called photons. The shorter the wavelength, the more energetic the photon--for instance, since blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light, its photons are more energetic. Certain black-and-white films can be safely handled in photographic darkrooms illuminated by deep red light, because the red photons do not carry enough energy to initiate the chemical changes that darken the film.
Photons of visible light have about 2 electron volts (ev), while medical x-ray photons may have energies of 50,000 ev and those of gamma rays reach 1,000,000 ev and even more. The arrival of (say) 50,000 ev x-ray photons from space is evidence of particles with at least that much energy, often much more, since each photon comes from a single particle. No process exists by which, for instance, ten electrons with 5000 ev each combine their energy to create a single photon of 50,000 ev.
Celestial x-rays cannot be observed from the ground, because the atmosphere quickly absorbs them. They can however reach satellite observatories orbiting above the atmosphere, and several of those have mapped the x-ray sky--the small Uhuru and the larger Einstein observatory, both launched by NASA, and more recently the very successful European ROSAT whose name (Roentgen-satellite) honors the discoverer of x-rays. Some x-ray sources seem associated with strange binary stars and black holes, others still puzzle us, but all suggest a source of high-energy particles.
The X-rays used by the doctor to spot broken bones and impacted teeth are valuable because they penetrate matter, the way light penetrates a windowpane. To produce sharp images of X-ray stars in the sky, on the other hand, X-rays must be focused. It seems like an impossible task, but it isn't--because when X-rays strike a surface at a flat angle, they are reflected, same as light off a mirror. Like a flat stone tossed at the surface of water, they bounce off when they hit at a shallow angle, but go through if the angle is too steep. That too was the design principle of the orbiting Chandra, named for Subramanian Chandrasekhar, an Indian astronomer who became one of the leaders and oustanding teachers of the US astronomy community.
The "Chandra" orbiting X-ray telescope was launched from the Space Shuttle on July 23, 1999, and it focuses X-rays from a series of ring-shaped mirrors. Imagine you cut off the tread of a tire, to produce a ring with a curved cross section. The "Chandra" telescope has metal focusing surfaces shaped like the inside of this ring, and by shallow reflections they bring X-rays to a focus.
Gamma Ray Bursts
Of all the high-energy photons beamed at us by the universe, probably none are more puzzling than those emitted in gamma ray bursts. In the 1960s the US launched a series of spacecraft with accurately timed gamma-ray detectors, to monitor nuclear tests in space and later to enforce the international ban on such tests. The idea was that by having several well-separated satellites note the exact arrival times of the radiation (gamma rays travel at the speed of light) the sources of radiation could be pin-pointed.
[All that is involved is a trigonometric calculation: the 24-satellite network of the "Global Positioning System" (GPS) uses somewhat similar principles, with the travel time of radio waves from a set of orbiting satellites pin-pointing positions on the ground. These satellites, at distances of 4.1 Earth radii, continually broadcast their precise locations, and these can be read by small portable receivers, relatively inexpensive. Using a built-in computer, these receivers then derive their own precise position on the ground, within 10-50 meters. Russia operates its own system, GLONASS, and European countries are planning a third one. For more details, see here.]
The spacecraft indeed observed brief bursts of gamma rays, but the timing suggested that they came not from Earth but from deep space. Later some fairly accurate "fixes" were obtained for a few events and powerful telescopes were trained on the indicated locations, but they saw nothing remarkable there.
There exists no generally accepted explanation for gamma ray bursts. Some promising theories were abandoned when NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite (CGRO) found in 1991 that they seemed to occur equally in all directions. Had they originated in our own galaxy, they would have probably been concentrated in the direction of the Milky Way, where most of our galaxy's stars are found (the galaxy is a flattened disk, and when we look at the Milky Way we see it edge-on). The new evidence suggests that they could come instead from distant galaxies, and if so, their sources must be incredibly powerful.
Locating the Sources of Bursts
On March 2, 1997, the Dutch-Italian satellite BeppoSAX ("Beppo" was the nickname of the late Italian physicist Ochialini, after whom the orbiting observatory was named) reported a gamma-ray burst, and turned its x-ray telescope to the region. The X-ray telescope reported a continuing source of X-rays, and NASA's orbiting Hubble telescope (as well as the Keck Observatory on the ground) observed a visible "star" at the appropriate location, probably a distant galaxy. So far no definite conclusions have emerged (see Nature, 17 April 1997, p. 650). Since then, other sources were identified visually, some by amateurs. (Update 11-24-04)
The riddle of the source of gamma ray bursts led astronomers to design and build a space observatory, designed to pin down and observe the source of bursts within seconds. That observatory was launched by NASA on November 20, 2004, under the name SWIFT, and at its heart if BAT, the Burst Alert Telescope, a gamma-ray detector covering 1/6 the sky and capable of deriving (within 10-20 seconds) the position of a gamma-ray burst, within 1-4 minutes of arc. It orbits about 600 km above the ground.
That position will be transmitted to ground observatories which--weather and position on the globe permitting--will immediately turn to the indicated location. Meanwhile SWIFT itself will orient itself, using momentum wheels, so that its two telescopes will also observe that spot--an X-ray telescope (XRT) and one in ultra-violet and visible light (UVOT). The X-ray detector will derive a spectrum in about 20 minutes, and will at other times conduct a survey of sources of "hard" (high-energy) X-rays, with a sensitivity 20 times of the best earlier observations. UVOT has a 30-cm wide telescope and sensitive detectors; using filters, it will go through a 2-hour cycle after an event. SWIFT can also be rotated on command to observe a gamma-ray burst seen by another satellite in a different part of the sky.
Magnetars and Bursts (added 4 March 2005)
In addition to the "ordinary" variety of gamma ray bursts, originating in distant galaxies, there exist brief bursts which may originate closer to home, in our own galaxy. One of those, surprisingly powerful, reached Earth on December 27, 2004. It was intense enough to saturate most detectors aboard "Swift," described above, and it lasted about half a second, but its effect on the ionosphere above the Pacific Ocean interfered with communications for about an hour. About 15 satellites around Earth detected it.
The source of this burst was pulsar SGR 1806-20, already being monitored because of its strong magnetic field. Pulsars are remnants of supernova events, the collapse of massive stars which have used up all their nuclear fuel. Such a star, if is massive enough (our Sun apparently does not qualify) enters a rapid runaway nuclear reaction, which drains almost all their gravitational energy, a huge amount. It leaves behind a "neutron star" a few kilometers across, a rapidly rotating assembly of neutrons with a density like that of an atomic nucleus and a mass of the order of the Sun's.
In the compression process, any magnetic field present can get greatly amplified. As explained elsewhere, in a plasma which conducts electricity well (as it does in a collapsing star) magnetic field lines behave as if they were "frozen" into the material which they permeate. If that material gets compressed, the same lines occupy a smaller space at greater density, which means, the magnetic field becomes much more intense. For example, if the dimensions of the field decrease 10,000 fold, the cross-section of any "tube" formed by magnetic field lines shrinks 100 million times, and the magnetic field inside the tube becomes 100 million times more intense.
The star SGR 1806-20 apparently had a respectable magnetic field when it began collapsing, and as a result, it ended as a neutron star with an enormously intense magnetic field, a "magnetar". Such stars in our galaxy (about 10 are known) sometimes emit gamma ray bursts. This one had previously emitted small bursts, and two appreciable events were recorded in 1979 and 1998, but the latest one outdid them by about a factor of 100.
How the gamma rays were produced can only be guessed, but magnetic energy must be involved--it also seems to be associated with to the acceleration of particles on the Sun, and particle acceleration is probably essential to the production of gamma rays. Some believe that stressed magnetic field lines, twisted by rotation (which is also enormously amplified when a star collapses) managed to suddenly "unwind" to some extent, like an overly wound-up spring working loose. The star is about 50,000 light years from Earth, and astrophysicists are beginning to wonder whether some short gamma ray bursts, detected from distant galaxies, might not represent similar events there.
Further Notes: This event was described in the "New York Times" on 2-20-2005 and on p.1178 of the issue of "Science" of 2-25-2005.
A more detailed and technical discussion of this event is in the article "Record Gamma-Ray Flare Is Attributed to a Hypermagnetized Neutron Star in Our Galaxy" by Bertram Schwartzschild on page 19 of the May 2005 isssue of "Physics Today."
Scientists will find interesting information in 5 articles in the 28 April 2005 issue of "Nature, p. 1098-1114.
The December event is also discussed here.
For an earlier discussion of magnetars in our galaxy, see here, including references to a previous event on 27 August 1998, originating at an estimated distance of 20,000 light years.
Radio Waves
The other mode resembles the broadcast of radio waves from an antenna. A radio antenna carries a rapidly alternating current which flows back-and-forth along it, and the back-and-forth motion (viewed from the side) of an energetic particle, when it spirals around a magnetic field line, acts the same way. ("Photon laws" apply here too, but because the photons are quite small, the "antenna viewpoint" may be used.)
Radio waves from space were discovered accidentally in 1932 by Karl Jansky, a radio engineer with the Bell Labs. Since then many radio telescopes have scanned the skies and have discovered remarkable sources of radio and microwaves. Often they seem to indicate high-energy particles; for instance, some sources associated with distant galaxies suggest particles trapped in enormous magnetic structures. Some come from the center of our own galaxy, where linked radio telescopes thousands of miles apart have pinpointed an extremely compact source, now identified as a giant black hole.
Perhaps the best known sources of this class are pulsars, sources of radio pulses whose repetition rate is extremely regular. They seem to be "neutron stars," collapsed remnants left behind by supernova explosions, stars as massive as the Sun but as dense as the atomic nucleus, no larger than 8-10 miles across. The collapse also greatly amplifies any existing magnetic field and speeds up enormously the star's rotation, creating compact stars which rotate about once a second, sometimes faster, with extraordinary strong magnetic fields.
It is believed that the radio pulses come from particles spiraling in those fields and that they are beamed in directions dictated by magnetic field lines. Thus as the pulsar rotates its radio beam, like the light-beam of a lighthouse, sweeps again and again past the Earth. The pulsing rate has been observed to decrease very slowly, suggesting processes which gradually slow the rotation down.
The Crab Nebula
The most recent supernova in the Earth's part of the galaxy was observed in China in 1054. It left behind it a peculiarly looking glowing cloud, the Crab Nebula, whose central star was recently revealed as a very rapid pulsar, with a radio signal pulsing about 30 times a second; it also pulses in visible light and in x-rays. The light of the nebula itself is polarized (vibrating in a certain ordered way), again suggesting electrons of very high energy spiraling in a magnetic field, and the nebula also contains many bright filaments (picture), which might well be magnetic in origin.
Theorists have speculated that the only way particles can escape the powerful magnetic trap--and radiate signals as they do--would be along the rotation axis, which by necessity is also the magnetic axis. The image on the right, taken of the Crab nebula by the orbiting "Chandra" telescope (see above) seems to fully confirm that view.
Closer to Home
High-energy electrons in the magnetosphere also emit x-rays and radio waves, in their own style. Positive ions, being heavier, tend to move more slowly and to radiate less efficiently.
To produce x-rays or gamma rays, electrons must collide with some more massive target. In a doctor's x-ray machine, for instance, they are shot onto a chunk of metal, inside a vaccum tube (electrons hitting the screen of a TV picture tube also produce x-rays, but these are absorbed by the glass). Out in space collisions are very few, but x-rays are produced when beams of auroral electrons hit the atmosphere.
In 1957 instruments of the University of Minnesota, carried by a balloon to the upper fringes of the atmosphere, detected x-rays emitted by auroral electrons many tens of miles above them. The recent "Polar " satellite carries an x-ray imager, highlighting regions in which auroral electrons are particularly energetic. The pictures produced are much less detailed than the ones in visible and ultra-violet light, from the other auroral imagers on "Polar." These latter images are particularly useful when the satellite is far from Earth, because their images then cover the entire polar cap; but rather detailed x-ray pictures have been obtained from the other end of the orbit, when "Polar" sweeps down, observing the auroral region at close range.
Many different types of radio emissions are generated by ions and electrons trapped in the magnetosphere, but few can be detected from the Earth's surface, because the ionosphere, at 100-300 km above our heads, usually reflects them back into space, just as it reflects back to Earth broadcasts of short-wave radio stations. However, in July 1962 a high-altitude nuclear test by the US created a dense temporary radiation belt of fast electrons, and radio noise from the new belt was then detected on the ground.
Even earlier, in 1955, strange radio signals were found to come from the planet Jupiter, greatly puzzling radio astronomers. The source turned out to be the planet's immense radiation belt. The fact that some of the emissions were found to be controlled by the position of the satellite Io is probably related to the electrical currents linking Io to Jupiter. The space probes which have visited Jupiter--Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, Ulysses and most recently Galileo--have observed at close hand many types of radio waves, beamed in interesting modes which still defy explanation. The first four went on to Saturn, and Voyager 2 continued to Uranus and Neptune, all of which were found to be magnetized, have radiation belts and emit radio waves. The solar system thus has magnetosphere beyond the Earths, waiting to be explored, differing from ours by the presence of moons and rings and by other features.
Satellites orbiting outside the Earth's ionosphere record a veritable "zoo" of radio emissions, not all of them understood. Most intense is the "auroral kilometric radiation" originating above the aurora ("kilometric" is the order of magnitude of its wavelength, below the AM radio band). The "antenna processes" by which these waves originate are profoundly affected by the surrounding plasma and by the way it interacts with the magnetic field. Such waves therefore provide valuable information about magnetospheric plasmas.
Author and Curator: Dr. David P. Stern
Mail to Dr.Stern: education@phy6.org
Co-author: Dr. Mauricio Peredo
Electromagnetic Waves
Perhaps the greatest theoretical achievement of physics in the 19th century was the discovery of electromagnetic waves. The first hint was an unexpected connection between electric phenomena and the velocity of light.
Electric forces in nature come in two kinds. First, there is the electric attraction or repulsion between (+) and (-) electric charges. It is possible to use this to define a unit of electric charge, as the charge which repels a similar charge at a distance of, say, 1 meter, with a force of unit strength (actual formulas make this precise).
But second, there is also the attraction and repulsion between parallel electric currents. One could then define the unit of current, as the current which, when flowing in a straight wire, attracts a similar current in a parallel wire 1 meter away with a force of unit strength, for every meter of the wires' length.
But electric current and charge are related! We could have just as well based the unit of current on the unit of charge--say, as the current in which one unit of charge passes each second through any cross section of the wire. This second definition turns out to be quite different, and if meters and seconds are used in all definitions, the ratio of the two units of current turns out to be the speed of light, 300,000,000 meters per second.
In Faraday's time the speed of light was known, although not as accurately as it is today. It was first derived around 1676 by Ole (Olaus) Roemer, a Danish astronomer working in Paris. Roemer tried to predict eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io (mentioned later here in an altogether different connection) and he found a difference between actual and predicted eclipse times, which grew and then decreased again as the Earth circled the Sun. He correctly guessed the reason, namely, as the Earth moved in its orbit, its distance to Jupiter also went up and down, and light needed extra time to cover the extra distance.
But what was the meaning of the link between electricity and light?
Remember the idea of Faraday which evolved into the "magnetic field" concept--that space in which magnetic forces may be observed is somehow changed? Faraday also showed that a magnetic field which varied in time--like the one produced by an alternating current (AC)--could drive electric currents, if (say) copper wires were placed in it in the appropriate way. That was "magnetic induction," the phenomenon on which electric transformers are based.
So, magnetic fields could produce electric currents, and we already know that electric currents produce magnetic fields. Would it perhaps be possible for space to support a wave motion alternating between the two? Sort of:
magnetic field ---> electric current ---> magnetic field ---> electric current ---> ...
There was one stumbling block. Such a wave could not exist in empty space, because empty space contained no copper wires and could not carry the currents needed to complete the above cycle. A brilliant young Scotsman, James Clerk Maxwell, solved the riddle in 1861 by proposing that the equations of electricity needed one more term, representing an electric current which could travel through empty space, but only for very fast oscillations.
With that term added (the "displacement current"), the equations of electricity and magnetism allowed a wave to exist, propagating at the speed of light. The drawing below illustrates such a wave--green is the magnetic part, blue the electric part--the term Maxwell added. The wave is drawn propagating just along one line. Actually it fills space, but it would be hard to draw that.
Electromagnetic Wave (see text above)
Maxwell proposed that it indeed was light. There had been earlier hints--as noted above, the velocity of light had appeared unexpectedly in the equations of electricity and magnetism--and further studies confirmed it. For instance, if a beam of light hits the side of a glass prism, only part of it enters--another part gets reflected. Maxwell's theory correctly predicted properties of the reflected beam.
Then Heinrich Hertz in Germany showed that an electric current bouncing back and forth in a wire (nowadays it would be called an "antenna") could be the source of such waves. (The current also produces a magnetic field in accordance with Ampere's law, but that field decreases rapidly with distance.) Electric sparks create such back-and-forth currents when they jump across a gap--hence the crackling caused by lightning on AM radio--and Hertz in 1886 used such sparks to send a radio signal across his lab. Later the Italian Marconi, with more sensitive detectors, extended the range of radio reception, and in 1903 detected signals from Europe as far as Cape Cod, Massachussets.
It was presumed that light from the hot wire of a lightbulb was emitted because the heat caused electrons to bounce back and forth rapidly, turning each into a tiny antenna. When physicists tried to follow that idea, however, they found that the familiar laws of nature had to be modified on the scale of atomic sizes. That was how quantum theory originated.
Author and Curator: Dr. David P. Stern
Mail to Dr.Stern: education@phy6.org
Co-author: Dr. Mauricio Peredo
Electric forces in nature come in two kinds. First, there is the electric attraction or repulsion between (+) and (-) electric charges. It is possible to use this to define a unit of electric charge, as the charge which repels a similar charge at a distance of, say, 1 meter, with a force of unit strength (actual formulas make this precise).
But second, there is also the attraction and repulsion between parallel electric currents. One could then define the unit of current, as the current which, when flowing in a straight wire, attracts a similar current in a parallel wire 1 meter away with a force of unit strength, for every meter of the wires' length.
But electric current and charge are related! We could have just as well based the unit of current on the unit of charge--say, as the current in which one unit of charge passes each second through any cross section of the wire. This second definition turns out to be quite different, and if meters and seconds are used in all definitions, the ratio of the two units of current turns out to be the speed of light, 300,000,000 meters per second.
In Faraday's time the speed of light was known, although not as accurately as it is today. It was first derived around 1676 by Ole (Olaus) Roemer, a Danish astronomer working in Paris. Roemer tried to predict eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io (mentioned later here in an altogether different connection) and he found a difference between actual and predicted eclipse times, which grew and then decreased again as the Earth circled the Sun. He correctly guessed the reason, namely, as the Earth moved in its orbit, its distance to Jupiter also went up and down, and light needed extra time to cover the extra distance.
But what was the meaning of the link between electricity and light?
Remember the idea of Faraday which evolved into the "magnetic field" concept--that space in which magnetic forces may be observed is somehow changed? Faraday also showed that a magnetic field which varied in time--like the one produced by an alternating current (AC)--could drive electric currents, if (say) copper wires were placed in it in the appropriate way. That was "magnetic induction," the phenomenon on which electric transformers are based.
So, magnetic fields could produce electric currents, and we already know that electric currents produce magnetic fields. Would it perhaps be possible for space to support a wave motion alternating between the two? Sort of:
magnetic field ---> electric current ---> magnetic field ---> electric current ---> ...
There was one stumbling block. Such a wave could not exist in empty space, because empty space contained no copper wires and could not carry the currents needed to complete the above cycle. A brilliant young Scotsman, James Clerk Maxwell, solved the riddle in 1861 by proposing that the equations of electricity needed one more term, representing an electric current which could travel through empty space, but only for very fast oscillations.
With that term added (the "displacement current"), the equations of electricity and magnetism allowed a wave to exist, propagating at the speed of light. The drawing below illustrates such a wave--green is the magnetic part, blue the electric part--the term Maxwell added. The wave is drawn propagating just along one line. Actually it fills space, but it would be hard to draw that.
Electromagnetic Wave (see text above)Maxwell proposed that it indeed was light. There had been earlier hints--as noted above, the velocity of light had appeared unexpectedly in the equations of electricity and magnetism--and further studies confirmed it. For instance, if a beam of light hits the side of a glass prism, only part of it enters--another part gets reflected. Maxwell's theory correctly predicted properties of the reflected beam.
Then Heinrich Hertz in Germany showed that an electric current bouncing back and forth in a wire (nowadays it would be called an "antenna") could be the source of such waves. (The current also produces a magnetic field in accordance with Ampere's law, but that field decreases rapidly with distance.) Electric sparks create such back-and-forth currents when they jump across a gap--hence the crackling caused by lightning on AM radio--and Hertz in 1886 used such sparks to send a radio signal across his lab. Later the Italian Marconi, with more sensitive detectors, extended the range of radio reception, and in 1903 detected signals from Europe as far as Cape Cod, Massachussets.
It was presumed that light from the hot wire of a lightbulb was emitted because the heat caused electrons to bounce back and forth rapidly, turning each into a tiny antenna. When physicists tried to follow that idea, however, they found that the familiar laws of nature had to be modified on the scale of atomic sizes. That was how quantum theory originated.
Author and Curator: Dr. David P. Stern
Mail to Dr.Stern: education@phy6.org
Co-author: Dr. Mauricio Peredo
Renewable Energy in the 21st Century
Not much has changed since the age of steam. If you live in Australia or North America, the computer screen on which you are reading this text is most likely to be powered by coal. Think about it... state of the art technology, powered by coal!
Electricity demand continues to expand worldwide, with consumption projected to grow by nearly 100% by 2020 (International Energy Outlook 2001). Electricity generation generally relies on burning fossil fuel which produces carbon dioxide (CO2) as one of its waste products. Concern has developed over the last decade about the effects of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) on the atmosphere, particularly with respect to global warming.
As a result of these environmental concerns, the world is facing an energy production dilemma. There is an increasing worldwide demand for energy to maintain and expand economic prosperity, whilst at the same time there is general agreement that global warming and pollution are harming the global environment in which we live.
Community concerns are forcing governments and industry to find ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to explore clean renewable sources of energy. Developed countries, excluding the USA, collectively agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
Incentives are now in place in most developed nations to promote the development of clean, renewable energy.
Fossil Fuel Alternatives:
The expansion of the nuclear power industry appears to be socially unacceptable. Solar and wind power cannot replace fossil fuels, just augment them and they are limited in scope, intermittent, and unreliable. Large-scale hydroelectric projects are now rejected on environmental grounds. Hot dry rock has the potential, worldwide, to significantly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Australia's Programme :
In November 1997, the Prime Minister's Statement "Safeguarding the Future: Australia's Response to Climate Change" indicated that by the year 2000 a mandatory requirement would be imposed on retailers and other large buyers of electricity to source an additional 2% of their electricity from renewable energy sources.
The Prime Minister's Statement culminated in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 which commenced operation on 18 January 2001. The specific objective of the Act is to encourage additional generation of electricity from renewable sources by issuing renewable energy certificates (REC's). These REC's provide an income stream for renewable energy generators. Fines, currently equivalent to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, will also be imposed on electricity distributors that fail to meet their requirements under the Act.
By 2010 an additional 9500 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity will be required in the Australian market. This is equivalent to over 1000MWe of new generation capacity. In addition the green power market, where individual consumers elect to purchase renewable energy, will add at least another 2000 gigawatt hours onto the renewable energy market by 2010, adding a further 200MWe of capacity for which REC's will be required.
Source: Geodynamics.com.au
Electricity demand continues to expand worldwide, with consumption projected to grow by nearly 100% by 2020 (International Energy Outlook 2001). Electricity generation generally relies on burning fossil fuel which produces carbon dioxide (CO2) as one of its waste products. Concern has developed over the last decade about the effects of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) on the atmosphere, particularly with respect to global warming.
As a result of these environmental concerns, the world is facing an energy production dilemma. There is an increasing worldwide demand for energy to maintain and expand economic prosperity, whilst at the same time there is general agreement that global warming and pollution are harming the global environment in which we live.
Community concerns are forcing governments and industry to find ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to explore clean renewable sources of energy. Developed countries, excluding the USA, collectively agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
Incentives are now in place in most developed nations to promote the development of clean, renewable energy.
Fossil Fuel Alternatives:
The expansion of the nuclear power industry appears to be socially unacceptable. Solar and wind power cannot replace fossil fuels, just augment them and they are limited in scope, intermittent, and unreliable. Large-scale hydroelectric projects are now rejected on environmental grounds. Hot dry rock has the potential, worldwide, to significantly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Australia's Programme :
In November 1997, the Prime Minister's Statement "Safeguarding the Future: Australia's Response to Climate Change" indicated that by the year 2000 a mandatory requirement would be imposed on retailers and other large buyers of electricity to source an additional 2% of their electricity from renewable energy sources.
The Prime Minister's Statement culminated in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 which commenced operation on 18 January 2001. The specific objective of the Act is to encourage additional generation of electricity from renewable sources by issuing renewable energy certificates (REC's). These REC's provide an income stream for renewable energy generators. Fines, currently equivalent to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, will also be imposed on electricity distributors that fail to meet their requirements under the Act.
By 2010 an additional 9500 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity will be required in the Australian market. This is equivalent to over 1000MWe of new generation capacity. In addition the green power market, where individual consumers elect to purchase renewable energy, will add at least another 2000 gigawatt hours onto the renewable energy market by 2010, adding a further 200MWe of capacity for which REC's will be required.
Source: Geodynamics.com.au
EU: Environment, security and foreign affairs
Minutes of 28/01/1999 - Final Edition
Environment, security and foreign affairs
A4-0005/1999
Resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy
The European Parliament,
- having regard to the motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs Rehn on the potential use of military-related resources for environmental strategies (B4-0551/95),
- having regard to the UN study 'Charting potential uses of resources allocated to military activities for civilian endeavours to protect the environment', UN (A46/364, 17 September 1991),
- having regard to its resolution of 29 June 1995 on anti-personnel landmines: a murderous impediment to development(1),
- having regard to its previous resolutions on non-proliferation and the testing of nuclear weapons and the Canberra Commission report of August 1996 on the abolition of nuclear weapons,
- having regard to the International Court's unanimous ruling on the obligation of the nuclear weapon states to negotiate for a ban on nuclear weapons (Advisory Opinion No. 96/22 of 8 July 1996),
- having regard to its opinion of 19 April 1996 on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection (COM(95)0155 - C4-0221/95 - 95/0098(CNS))(2),
- having regard to its earlier resolutions on chemical weapons,
- having regard to the outcome of the UN Conferences in Kyoto in 1997 and Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
- having regard to the hearing on HAARP and Non-lethal Weapons held by its Foreign Affairs Subcommitee on Security and Disarmament in Brussels on 5 February 1998,
- having regard to Rule 148 of its Rules of Procedure,
- having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection (A4-0005/1999),
A. whereas the end of the Cold War has radically changed the security situation in the world and whereas the relaxation of military tension has resulted in comprehensive disarmament in the military field in general and in nuclear weapons in particular, resulting in considerable cut-backs in defence budgets,
B. whereas, despite this complete transformation of the geostrategic situation since the end of the Cold War, the risk of catastrophic damage to the integrity and sustainability of the global environment, notably its bio-diversity, has not significantly diminished, whether from the accidental or unauthorised firing of nuclear weapons or the authorised use of nuclear weapons based on a perceived but unfounded threat of impending attack,
C. whereas this risk could be very considerably reduced within a very short timeframe by the rapid implementation by all nuclear weapons states of the six steps contained in the Canberra Commission"s report concerning, in particular, the removal of all nuclear weapons from the present " hair trigger alert" readiness and the progressive transfer of all weapons into strategic reserve,
D. whereas Article VI of the 1968 Treaty on the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) commits all of its parties to undertake "to pursue negotiations in good faith on a treaty on general and complete disarmament" and whereas the Principles and Objectives adopted at the 1995 NPT Conference reaffirmed that the Treaty"s ultimate goal was the complete elimination of nuclear weapons,
E. whereas threats to the environment, the flow of refugees, ethnic tension, terrorism and international crime are new and serious threats to security; whereas the ability to deal with various forms of conflict is increasing in importance as the security scene changes,
F. whereas the world's resources are being exploited as if they were inexhaustible, which has led to increasingly frequent natural and environmental disasters; whereas such local and regional ecological problems may have considerable impact on international relations; regretting that this has not been more clearly reflected in national foreign, security and defence policies,
G. whereas conflicts throughout the world are predominantly at an intra-state rather than inter-state level and, where inter-state conflicts do arise, they are increasingly concerned with access to or the availability of basic vital resources, especially water, food and fuel,
H. whereas the access to and availability of such vital natural resources are inherently connected to environmental degradation and pollution, by both cause and effect, whereas it follows logically therefore that conflict prevention must increasingly focus on these issues,
I. whereas all those factors, which affect the poorest and most vulnerable populations of the world most of all, are constantly increasing the incidence of so-called 'environmental refugees', resulting both in direct pressure on EU immigration and justice policies, on development assistance and spending on humanitarian aid and, indirectly, in increased security problems for the EU in the form of regional instability in other parts of the world,
J. whereas, according to detailed international research collated and published by the Climate Institute in Washington, the number of 'environmental refugees' now exceeds the number of 'traditional refugees' (25 m compared with 22 m) and whereas this figure is expected to double by 2010 and could well rise by substantially more on a worst-case basis,
K. whereas, since the end of the Cold War, although the management of global issues has been largely stripped of the previously dominant ideological context and is now much less determined by the question of military balance, this has yet to be reflected in the UN"s system of global governance by emphasising the coherence and effectiveness of both military and non-military components of security policy,
L. whereas, nonetheless, the emphasis of a growing proportion of the UN"s work on global political and security issues is essentially non-military, and notably related to the relationship between trade, aid, the environment and sustainable development,
M. whereas there is an urgent need to mobilise adequate resources to meet the environmental challenge and whereas very limited resources are available for environmental protection, for which reason a reappraisal of the use of existing resources is called for,
N. whereas as military resources have been released the armed forces have had a unique opportunity and ample capacity to support the civilian efforts to cope with the increasing environmental problems,
O. whereas military-related resources are by their nature national assets while the environmental challenge is global; whereas ways must therefore be found for international cooperation in the transfer and use of military resources for environmental protection,
P. whereas the short-term costs of environmental protection have to be seen in the light of the long-term cost of doing nothing in this field, and whereas there is an increasing need for a cost benefit analysis of various environmental strategies,
Q. whereas the common goal of restoring the world's damaged ecosystems cannot be achieved in isolation from the question of the fair exploitation of global resources and whereas there is a need to facilitate international technical cooperation and encourage the transfer of appropriate military-related technology,
R. whereas, despite the existing conventions, military research is ongoing on environmental manipulation as a weapon, as demonstrated for example by the Alaska-based HAARP system,
S. whereas the general disquiet over ecological decline and environmental crises requires the setting of priorities in the national decision-making process; whereas the individual countries must pool their efforts in response to environmental disasters,
1. Calls on the Commission to present to the Council and Parliament a common strategy, as foreseen by the Amsterdam Treaty, which brings together the CFSP aspects of EU policy with its trade, aid, development and international environmental policies between 2000 and 2010 so as to tackle the following individual issues and the relationships between them:
a) agricultural and food production and environmental degradation;
b) water shortages and transfrontier water supply;
c) deforestation and restoring carbon sinks;
d) unemployment, underemployment and absolute poverty;
e) sustainable development and climate change;
f) deforestation, desertification and population growth;
g) the link between all of the above and global warming and the humanitarian and environmental impact of increasingly extreme weather events;
2. Notes that preventive environmental measures are an important instrument of security policy; calls therefore on the Member States to define environmental and health objectives as part of their long-term defence and security assessments, military research and action plans;
3. Recognises the important part played by the armed forces in a democratic society, their national defence role and the fact that peace-keeping and peace-making initiatives can make a substantial contribution to the prevention of environmental damage;
4. Points out that atmospheric and underground nuclear tests have as a result of nuclear radiation fall-out distributed large quantities of radioactive cesium 137, strontium 90 and other cancer inducing isotopes over the whole planet and have caused considerable environmental and health damage in the test areas;
5. Calls on the Commission and the Council, given the fact that several parts of the world are threatened by the uncontrolled, unsafe and unprofessional storage and dumping of nuclear submarines and surface-vessels, as well as their radioactive fuel and leaking nuclear reactors, to take action, considering the high possibility that as a result large regions might soon start to be polluted by the radiation;
6. Demands also that an appropriate solution be found to deal with the chemical and conventional weapons which have been dumped after both World Wars in many places in the seas around Europe as an ' easy" solution to get rid of these stocks and that up to today nobody knows what might be the ecological results in the long run, in particular for the fish and for beach-life;
7. Calls on the Commission and the Council to contribute towards finding a solution to the problem that, as result of ongoing warfare in whole regions of Africa, human and agricultural structures have been ruined and therefore the lands are now subject to environmental disaster in particular by deforestation and erosion leading to desertification;
8. Calls on the military to end all activities which contribute to damaging the environment and health and to undertake all steps necessary to clean up and decontaminate the polluted areas;
Use of military resources for environmental purposes
9. Considers that the resources available to reverse or stem damage to the environment are inadequate to meet the global challenge; recommends therefore that the Member States seek to utilise military-related resources for environmental protection by:
a) considering which military resources can be made available to the United Nations on a temporary, long-term or stand-by basis as an instrument for international cooperation in environmental disasters or crises;
b) drawing up international and European protection programmes using military personnel, equipment and facilities made available under the Partnership for Peace for use in environmental emergencies;
c) incorporating objectives for environmental protection and sustainable development in their security concepts;
d) ensuring that their armed forces comply with specific environmental rules and that damage caused by them to the environment in the past is made good;
e) including environmental considerations in their military research and development programmes;
10. Urges the Commission, since practical experience in the field is limited, to:
a) establish the exchange of information on current national experience in environmental applications for military resources;
b) take action within the UN to facilitate the global dissemination of environmental data including such data obtained by the use of military satellites and other information-gathering platforms;
11. Calls on the Member States to apply civil environmental legislation to all military activities and to assume responsibility for, and pay for, the investigation, clean-up and decontamination of areas damaged by past military activity, so that such areas can be returned to civil use; this is especially important for the extensive chemical and conventional munition dumps along the coastlines of the EU;
12. Calls on all Member States to formulate environmental and health objectives and action plans so as to enhance the measures taken by their armed forces to protect the environment and health;
13. Calls on the governments of the Member States gradually to improve the protection of the environment by the armed forces by means of training and technical development and by giving all regular and conscript personnel basic training in environmental matters;
14. Considers that environmental strategies should be able to include monitoring the world environment, assessing the data thus collected, coordinating scientific work and disseminating information, exploiting relevant data from national observation and monitoring systems to give a continuous and comprehensive picture of the state of the environment;
15. Notes that the drastic fall in military expenditure could result in substantial problems in certain regions and calls on the Member States to step up their efforts to convert military production facilities and technologies to produce civil goods, and for civil applications, using national programmes and Community initiatives such as the KONVER programme;
16. Stresses the importance of stepping up preventive environmental work with a view to combating environmental and natural disasters;
17. Calls on the Council to do more to ensure that the USA, Russia, India and China sign the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, banning anti-personnel mines, without delay;
18. Believes that the EU should do more to help the victims of landmines and to support the development of mine clearance techniques, and that the development of mine clearance methods should be accelerated;
19. Calls on the Member States to develop environmentally-sound technology for the destruction of weapons;
20. Notes that one of the potentially most serious threats that exist on the EU's doorstep lies in the inadequate monitoring of waste from nuclear arms processing and of biological and chemical weapons stores and in the need for decontamination following military activity; stresses that it is important that the Member States actively promote increased international cooperation, for instance within the UN and the Partnership for Peace, with the aim of destroying such weapons in as environment-friendly a way as possible;
21. Takes the view that all further negotiations on the reduction and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons must be based on the principles of mutual and balanced reduction commitments;
22. Takes the view that, given the particularly difficult circumstances afflicting the countries of the former Soviet Union, the threat to the global as well as local environment posed by the degradation of the condition of nuclear weapons and materials still held in those countries makes it an even more urgent priority to reach agreement on the further gradual elimination of nuclear weapons;
Legal aspects of military activities
23. Calls on the European Union to seek to have the new 'non-lethal' weapons technology and the development of new arms strategies also covered and regulated by international conventions;
24. Considers HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project) by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body before any further research and testing; regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration to send anyone in person to give evidence to the public hearing or any subsequent meeting held by its competent committee into the environmental and public risks connected with the HAARP programme currently being funded in Alaska;
25. Requests the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) Panel to agree to examine the scientific and technical evidence provided in all existing research findings on HAARP to assess the exact nature and degree of risk that HAARP poses both to the local and global environment and to public health generally;
26. Calls on the Commission to examine if there are environmental and public health implications of the HAARP programme for Arctic Europe and to report back to Parliament with its findings;
27. Calls for an international convention introducing a global ban on all developments and deployments of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings;
28. Calls on the Commission and the Council to work for the conclusion of international treaties to protect the environment from unnecessary destruction in the event of war;
29. Calls on the Commission and the Council to work towards the establishment of international standards for the environmental impact of peacetime military activities;
30. Calls on the Council to play an active part in the implementation of the proposals of the Canberra Commission and Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear disarmament;
31. Calls on the Council, and the British and French governments in particular, to take the lead within the framework of the NPT and the Conference on Disarmament with regard to the further negotiations towards full implementation of the commitments on nuclear weapons reductions and elimination as rapidly as possible to a level where, in the interim, the global stock of remaining weapons poses no threat to the integrity and sustainability of the global environment;
32. Calls on the Council, the Commission and the governments of the Member States to advocate the approach taken in this resolution in all further United Nations meetings held under the auspices of or in relation to the NPT and the Conference on Disarmament;
33. Calls on the Council and the Commission, in accordance with Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union, to report to it on the Union"s position concerning the specific points contained in this resolution within the context of forthcoming meetings of the United Nations, its agencies and bodies, notably the 1999 Preparatory Committee of the NPT, the Conference on Disarmament and all other relevant international fora;
34. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments of the Member States of the European Union and to the United Nations.
(1)OJ C 183, 17.7.1995, p. 47.
(2)OJ C 141, 13.5.1996, p. 258.
Environment, security and foreign affairs
A4-0005/1999
Resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy
The European Parliament,
- having regard to the motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs Rehn on the potential use of military-related resources for environmental strategies (B4-0551/95),
- having regard to the UN study 'Charting potential uses of resources allocated to military activities for civilian endeavours to protect the environment', UN (A46/364, 17 September 1991),
- having regard to its resolution of 29 June 1995 on anti-personnel landmines: a murderous impediment to development(1),
- having regard to its previous resolutions on non-proliferation and the testing of nuclear weapons and the Canberra Commission report of August 1996 on the abolition of nuclear weapons,
- having regard to the International Court's unanimous ruling on the obligation of the nuclear weapon states to negotiate for a ban on nuclear weapons (Advisory Opinion No. 96/22 of 8 July 1996),
- having regard to its opinion of 19 April 1996 on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection (COM(95)0155 - C4-0221/95 - 95/0098(CNS))(2),
- having regard to its earlier resolutions on chemical weapons,
- having regard to the outcome of the UN Conferences in Kyoto in 1997 and Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
- having regard to the hearing on HAARP and Non-lethal Weapons held by its Foreign Affairs Subcommitee on Security and Disarmament in Brussels on 5 February 1998,
- having regard to Rule 148 of its Rules of Procedure,
- having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection (A4-0005/1999),
A. whereas the end of the Cold War has radically changed the security situation in the world and whereas the relaxation of military tension has resulted in comprehensive disarmament in the military field in general and in nuclear weapons in particular, resulting in considerable cut-backs in defence budgets,
B. whereas, despite this complete transformation of the geostrategic situation since the end of the Cold War, the risk of catastrophic damage to the integrity and sustainability of the global environment, notably its bio-diversity, has not significantly diminished, whether from the accidental or unauthorised firing of nuclear weapons or the authorised use of nuclear weapons based on a perceived but unfounded threat of impending attack,
C. whereas this risk could be very considerably reduced within a very short timeframe by the rapid implementation by all nuclear weapons states of the six steps contained in the Canberra Commission"s report concerning, in particular, the removal of all nuclear weapons from the present " hair trigger alert" readiness and the progressive transfer of all weapons into strategic reserve,
D. whereas Article VI of the 1968 Treaty on the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) commits all of its parties to undertake "to pursue negotiations in good faith on a treaty on general and complete disarmament" and whereas the Principles and Objectives adopted at the 1995 NPT Conference reaffirmed that the Treaty"s ultimate goal was the complete elimination of nuclear weapons,
E. whereas threats to the environment, the flow of refugees, ethnic tension, terrorism and international crime are new and serious threats to security; whereas the ability to deal with various forms of conflict is increasing in importance as the security scene changes,
F. whereas the world's resources are being exploited as if they were inexhaustible, which has led to increasingly frequent natural and environmental disasters; whereas such local and regional ecological problems may have considerable impact on international relations; regretting that this has not been more clearly reflected in national foreign, security and defence policies,
G. whereas conflicts throughout the world are predominantly at an intra-state rather than inter-state level and, where inter-state conflicts do arise, they are increasingly concerned with access to or the availability of basic vital resources, especially water, food and fuel,
H. whereas the access to and availability of such vital natural resources are inherently connected to environmental degradation and pollution, by both cause and effect, whereas it follows logically therefore that conflict prevention must increasingly focus on these issues,
I. whereas all those factors, which affect the poorest and most vulnerable populations of the world most of all, are constantly increasing the incidence of so-called 'environmental refugees', resulting both in direct pressure on EU immigration and justice policies, on development assistance and spending on humanitarian aid and, indirectly, in increased security problems for the EU in the form of regional instability in other parts of the world,
J. whereas, according to detailed international research collated and published by the Climate Institute in Washington, the number of 'environmental refugees' now exceeds the number of 'traditional refugees' (25 m compared with 22 m) and whereas this figure is expected to double by 2010 and could well rise by substantially more on a worst-case basis,
K. whereas, since the end of the Cold War, although the management of global issues has been largely stripped of the previously dominant ideological context and is now much less determined by the question of military balance, this has yet to be reflected in the UN"s system of global governance by emphasising the coherence and effectiveness of both military and non-military components of security policy,
L. whereas, nonetheless, the emphasis of a growing proportion of the UN"s work on global political and security issues is essentially non-military, and notably related to the relationship between trade, aid, the environment and sustainable development,
M. whereas there is an urgent need to mobilise adequate resources to meet the environmental challenge and whereas very limited resources are available for environmental protection, for which reason a reappraisal of the use of existing resources is called for,
N. whereas as military resources have been released the armed forces have had a unique opportunity and ample capacity to support the civilian efforts to cope with the increasing environmental problems,
O. whereas military-related resources are by their nature national assets while the environmental challenge is global; whereas ways must therefore be found for international cooperation in the transfer and use of military resources for environmental protection,
P. whereas the short-term costs of environmental protection have to be seen in the light of the long-term cost of doing nothing in this field, and whereas there is an increasing need for a cost benefit analysis of various environmental strategies,
Q. whereas the common goal of restoring the world's damaged ecosystems cannot be achieved in isolation from the question of the fair exploitation of global resources and whereas there is a need to facilitate international technical cooperation and encourage the transfer of appropriate military-related technology,
R. whereas, despite the existing conventions, military research is ongoing on environmental manipulation as a weapon, as demonstrated for example by the Alaska-based HAARP system,
S. whereas the general disquiet over ecological decline and environmental crises requires the setting of priorities in the national decision-making process; whereas the individual countries must pool their efforts in response to environmental disasters,
1. Calls on the Commission to present to the Council and Parliament a common strategy, as foreseen by the Amsterdam Treaty, which brings together the CFSP aspects of EU policy with its trade, aid, development and international environmental policies between 2000 and 2010 so as to tackle the following individual issues and the relationships between them:
a) agricultural and food production and environmental degradation;
b) water shortages and transfrontier water supply;
c) deforestation and restoring carbon sinks;
d) unemployment, underemployment and absolute poverty;
e) sustainable development and climate change;
f) deforestation, desertification and population growth;
g) the link between all of the above and global warming and the humanitarian and environmental impact of increasingly extreme weather events;
2. Notes that preventive environmental measures are an important instrument of security policy; calls therefore on the Member States to define environmental and health objectives as part of their long-term defence and security assessments, military research and action plans;
3. Recognises the important part played by the armed forces in a democratic society, their national defence role and the fact that peace-keeping and peace-making initiatives can make a substantial contribution to the prevention of environmental damage;
4. Points out that atmospheric and underground nuclear tests have as a result of nuclear radiation fall-out distributed large quantities of radioactive cesium 137, strontium 90 and other cancer inducing isotopes over the whole planet and have caused considerable environmental and health damage in the test areas;
5. Calls on the Commission and the Council, given the fact that several parts of the world are threatened by the uncontrolled, unsafe and unprofessional storage and dumping of nuclear submarines and surface-vessels, as well as their radioactive fuel and leaking nuclear reactors, to take action, considering the high possibility that as a result large regions might soon start to be polluted by the radiation;
6. Demands also that an appropriate solution be found to deal with the chemical and conventional weapons which have been dumped after both World Wars in many places in the seas around Europe as an ' easy" solution to get rid of these stocks and that up to today nobody knows what might be the ecological results in the long run, in particular for the fish and for beach-life;
7. Calls on the Commission and the Council to contribute towards finding a solution to the problem that, as result of ongoing warfare in whole regions of Africa, human and agricultural structures have been ruined and therefore the lands are now subject to environmental disaster in particular by deforestation and erosion leading to desertification;
8. Calls on the military to end all activities which contribute to damaging the environment and health and to undertake all steps necessary to clean up and decontaminate the polluted areas;
Use of military resources for environmental purposes
9. Considers that the resources available to reverse or stem damage to the environment are inadequate to meet the global challenge; recommends therefore that the Member States seek to utilise military-related resources for environmental protection by:
a) considering which military resources can be made available to the United Nations on a temporary, long-term or stand-by basis as an instrument for international cooperation in environmental disasters or crises;
b) drawing up international and European protection programmes using military personnel, equipment and facilities made available under the Partnership for Peace for use in environmental emergencies;
c) incorporating objectives for environmental protection and sustainable development in their security concepts;
d) ensuring that their armed forces comply with specific environmental rules and that damage caused by them to the environment in the past is made good;
e) including environmental considerations in their military research and development programmes;
10. Urges the Commission, since practical experience in the field is limited, to:
a) establish the exchange of information on current national experience in environmental applications for military resources;
b) take action within the UN to facilitate the global dissemination of environmental data including such data obtained by the use of military satellites and other information-gathering platforms;
11. Calls on the Member States to apply civil environmental legislation to all military activities and to assume responsibility for, and pay for, the investigation, clean-up and decontamination of areas damaged by past military activity, so that such areas can be returned to civil use; this is especially important for the extensive chemical and conventional munition dumps along the coastlines of the EU;
12. Calls on all Member States to formulate environmental and health objectives and action plans so as to enhance the measures taken by their armed forces to protect the environment and health;
13. Calls on the governments of the Member States gradually to improve the protection of the environment by the armed forces by means of training and technical development and by giving all regular and conscript personnel basic training in environmental matters;
14. Considers that environmental strategies should be able to include monitoring the world environment, assessing the data thus collected, coordinating scientific work and disseminating information, exploiting relevant data from national observation and monitoring systems to give a continuous and comprehensive picture of the state of the environment;
15. Notes that the drastic fall in military expenditure could result in substantial problems in certain regions and calls on the Member States to step up their efforts to convert military production facilities and technologies to produce civil goods, and for civil applications, using national programmes and Community initiatives such as the KONVER programme;
16. Stresses the importance of stepping up preventive environmental work with a view to combating environmental and natural disasters;
17. Calls on the Council to do more to ensure that the USA, Russia, India and China sign the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, banning anti-personnel mines, without delay;
18. Believes that the EU should do more to help the victims of landmines and to support the development of mine clearance techniques, and that the development of mine clearance methods should be accelerated;
19. Calls on the Member States to develop environmentally-sound technology for the destruction of weapons;
20. Notes that one of the potentially most serious threats that exist on the EU's doorstep lies in the inadequate monitoring of waste from nuclear arms processing and of biological and chemical weapons stores and in the need for decontamination following military activity; stresses that it is important that the Member States actively promote increased international cooperation, for instance within the UN and the Partnership for Peace, with the aim of destroying such weapons in as environment-friendly a way as possible;
21. Takes the view that all further negotiations on the reduction and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons must be based on the principles of mutual and balanced reduction commitments;
22. Takes the view that, given the particularly difficult circumstances afflicting the countries of the former Soviet Union, the threat to the global as well as local environment posed by the degradation of the condition of nuclear weapons and materials still held in those countries makes it an even more urgent priority to reach agreement on the further gradual elimination of nuclear weapons;
Legal aspects of military activities
23. Calls on the European Union to seek to have the new 'non-lethal' weapons technology and the development of new arms strategies also covered and regulated by international conventions;
24. Considers HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project) by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body before any further research and testing; regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration to send anyone in person to give evidence to the public hearing or any subsequent meeting held by its competent committee into the environmental and public risks connected with the HAARP programme currently being funded in Alaska;
25. Requests the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) Panel to agree to examine the scientific and technical evidence provided in all existing research findings on HAARP to assess the exact nature and degree of risk that HAARP poses both to the local and global environment and to public health generally;
26. Calls on the Commission to examine if there are environmental and public health implications of the HAARP programme for Arctic Europe and to report back to Parliament with its findings;
27. Calls for an international convention introducing a global ban on all developments and deployments of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings;
28. Calls on the Commission and the Council to work for the conclusion of international treaties to protect the environment from unnecessary destruction in the event of war;
29. Calls on the Commission and the Council to work towards the establishment of international standards for the environmental impact of peacetime military activities;
30. Calls on the Council to play an active part in the implementation of the proposals of the Canberra Commission and Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear disarmament;
31. Calls on the Council, and the British and French governments in particular, to take the lead within the framework of the NPT and the Conference on Disarmament with regard to the further negotiations towards full implementation of the commitments on nuclear weapons reductions and elimination as rapidly as possible to a level where, in the interim, the global stock of remaining weapons poses no threat to the integrity and sustainability of the global environment;
32. Calls on the Council, the Commission and the governments of the Member States to advocate the approach taken in this resolution in all further United Nations meetings held under the auspices of or in relation to the NPT and the Conference on Disarmament;
33. Calls on the Council and the Commission, in accordance with Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union, to report to it on the Union"s position concerning the specific points contained in this resolution within the context of forthcoming meetings of the United Nations, its agencies and bodies, notably the 1999 Preparatory Committee of the NPT, the Conference on Disarmament and all other relevant international fora;
34. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments of the Member States of the European Union and to the United Nations.
(1)OJ C 183, 17.7.1995, p. 47.
(2)OJ C 141, 13.5.1996, p. 258.
The World Peace Forum 2006, Vancouver BC.
The World Peace Forum 2006 is an international gathering of individuals, groups and civic governments from cities and communities to envision a culture of peace, justice and sustainability in our lifetimes.
The goal is to build networks of citizens and civic governments committed to a culture of peace and sustainability. While global militarism is increasing, resources available for human needs such as health care, education or housing are decreasing. The World Peace Forum 2006 will discuss best practices and provide tools for these networks to have a major influence on their national governments to reduce military spending and promote peaceful solutions to conflicts in the world.
The Forum will take place in one of the most beautiful and peaceful settings in the world: Vancouver, Canada from 23 to 28 June 2006. The program will include plenary sessions, thematic workshops, roundtable discussions and cultural shows. All these activities will be developed around the themes of global justice, women and peace, youth, First Nations, peace education, racism, sustainability and disarmament, among others.
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT World Peace Forum 2006, please contact:
550 W. 6th Avenue, Suite 420
Vancouver, BC V5Z 1A1
Tel: 1 604 687 3223 Ext. 104
Fax: 1 604 687 3277
Web: www.worldpeaceforum.ca
The goal is to build networks of citizens and civic governments committed to a culture of peace and sustainability. While global militarism is increasing, resources available for human needs such as health care, education or housing are decreasing. The World Peace Forum 2006 will discuss best practices and provide tools for these networks to have a major influence on their national governments to reduce military spending and promote peaceful solutions to conflicts in the world.
The Forum will take place in one of the most beautiful and peaceful settings in the world: Vancouver, Canada from 23 to 28 June 2006. The program will include plenary sessions, thematic workshops, roundtable discussions and cultural shows. All these activities will be developed around the themes of global justice, women and peace, youth, First Nations, peace education, racism, sustainability and disarmament, among others.
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT World Peace Forum 2006, please contact:
550 W. 6th Avenue, Suite 420
Vancouver, BC V5Z 1A1
Tel: 1 604 687 3223 Ext. 104
Fax: 1 604 687 3277
Web: www.worldpeaceforum.ca
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