Feb 20 1977
From The Space Library
Distant planets Uranus and Neptune had turned out to have spin rates similar to earth's, so that their days correspond to earth days and they had probably come from the same debris that earth did, reported Kitt Peak astronomers Michael J.S. Belton and Bethanne Hayes. Using the observatory's just-over-400cm telescope, world's sec- and largest, the astronomers found that (contrary to previous theory) spin rates of the outermost planets (except for Pluto) resembled not those of Saturn and Jupiter but rather those of earth and Mars. The discovery indicated they were solid ice-like bodies, not big balls of gas, Dr. Belton said.
Using a smaller telescope at Kitt Peak, a separate 4-member team of scientists had reported the first observation of weather patterns in the upper atmosphere of Neptune. Dr. Richard Joyce and 3 scientists from the Univ. of Hawaii had found a marked increase in Neptune's reflectivity between April 1975 and March 1976, suggesting the presence of thin transient clouds high in that planet's atmosphere. Astronomers had been using the planet as a standard measure of brightness, thinking that it experienced no atmospheric changes. (W Post, Feb 20/77, F16)
Meteorites-so rare that museum collections around the world contained no more than 2000, and no curator had reported finding one on his own-had turned up in quantity in Antarctica several years ago when a team of Japanese scientists found an area of the ice-covered continent where hunting meteorites was "as easy as picking mushrooms," the Chicago Tribune reported.
Dr. Edward J. Olsen, chief of geology at Chicago's Field Museum and curator of one of the largest meteorite collections, had returned from the first U.S. meteorite expedition to Antarctica reporting that his team had found pieces of 11 different meteorites, weighing about 450kg in all, at two sites more than 200km northwest of the U.S. research station on McMurdo Sound where movement of the ice cover had concentrated meteorites at certain spots.
Scientists valued the meteorites as the oldest objects yet located, dating back as far as 4.5 billion yr, whereas earth's oldest rocks were only 3.7 billion yr old. Meteorites in pristine condition, preserved by the ice, might contain information about organic chemicals in space, Olsen said, and cosmic-ray traces might show whether the sun was running down or getting hotter. (C Trib, Feb 20/77, 1-3)
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