<

CCNet, 30/2003 - 14 March 2003

"For years, the American space agency NASA has relied on amateur astronomers to search for asteroids -- huge chunks of space rock that may be on a collision course with the planet Earth. Many professional telescopes are well suited to scanning large portions of the sky and picking out new asteroids. But hundreds of amateur observatories around the globe use their narrower telescopes to zero in on the new discoveries, and track their progress through space."
-- Curt Nickisch, VOANews, 12 March 2003

"A study of southern Caribbean sediments suggests that a century-long dry trend may have been the killing blow in the demise of the Mayan civilization that once built pyramids and elaborate cities in Mexico. Konrad A. Hughen, a geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said sediments from the Cariaco Basin in northern Venezuela clearly record a long dry siege that struck the entire Caribbean starting in about the seventh century and lasting more than 100 years."

-><-><-><-><-

(1) WHY MAYAN CIVILIZATION DRIED UP: SEDIMENT STUDY SUPPORTS VIEW THAT DROUGHT WAS KILLING BLOW
MSNBC, 14 March 2003

(2) CHANGES IN SUN'S INTENSITY TIED TO RECURRENT DROUGHTS IN MAYA REGION
CCNet, 18 May 2001

(3) ANCIENT APOCALYPSE: THE FALL OF THE MAYAN CIVILISATION
BBCi Ancient History

(4) $25,000 OBSERVATORY HELPS SCIENTISTS TRACK ASTEROIDS
VOANews, 12 March 2003

(5) SCIENTISTS DISCOVER AN EVAPORATING "COMETARY" PLANET IN ANOTHER SOLAR SYSTEM
ESA, 12 March 2003

(6) ASTEROIDS, SECRECY AND PUBLICITY
David Tholen

(7) THANKS BRIAN ... AND BY THE WAY
Andy Smith

(8) VERY GOOD NEWS ON PROGRESS IN COUNTING CRATERS FROM THE LPI ANNUAL MEETING
E.P. Grondine

(9) AND FINALLY: NEW SPACE RACE AS CHINA ENTERS THE RING
The New York Times, 14 March 2003

All currently available at CCNet.com

-><-><-><-><-

CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To subscribe/unsubscribe, please contact the moderator Benny J Peiser. Information circulated on this network is for scholarly and educational use only. The attached information may not be copied or reproduced for any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright holders. The fully indexed archive of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be found at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts and in other CCNet contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the moderator of this network.

Cheers,
Dan