scholarly journals Natural hazards for the Earth's civilization from space, 1. Cosmic ray influence on atmospheric processes

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 281-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. I. Dorman

Abstract. In this paper we give a short description of global natural disasters for the Earth's civilization from space: 1) Galactic and solar cosmic ray (CR) influence on the atmospheric processes; 2) Impacts of great space magnetic storms during big Forbush-effects in CR, 3) Impacts of great radiation hazards from solar CR during flare energetic particle events, 4) Great impacts on planetary climate during periods of the Solar system capturing by molecular-dust clouds, 5) Catastrophic disasters from nearby Supernova explosions, and 6) Catastrophic disasters from asteroid impacts on the Earth. Some of these problems have been already studied (see e.g. Dorman, 1957, 1963a, b; Dorman and Miroshnichenko, 1968; Dorman, 1972, 1974, 1975a, b, 1978; Velinov et al., 1974; Miroshnichenko, 2001, 2003; Dorman, 2004, 2006, 2008). We present here a detailed treatment of the first disaster only, leaving to future papers the analysis of the other aspects.

1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 154-157
Author(s):  
D. J. Cooke ◽  
A. G. Fenton

Primary cosmic rays passing through the solar system carry with them valuable information about solar and astrophysical phenomena in the form of intensity and spectral variations. In order that this information be efficiently extracted from observations of the directional cosmic-ray flux at the surface of the Earth, it is essential to have accurate information available to enable the relating of the observed secondary cosmic-ray directions of motion and intensity to those outside the range of the disturbing terrestrial influences.


Author(s):  
L. J. Hallis

The original hydrogen isotope (D/H) ratios of different planetary bodies may indicate where each body formed in the Solar System. However, geological and atmospheric processes can alter these ratios through time. Over the past few decades, D/H ratios in meteorites from Vesta and Mars, as well as from S- and C-type asteroids, have been measured. The aim of this article is to bring together all previously published data from these bodies, as well as the Earth, in order to determine the original D/H ratio for each of these inner Solar System planetary bodies. Once all secondary processes have been stripped away, the inner Solar System appears to be relatively homogeneous in terms of water D/H, with the original water D/H ratios of Vesta, Mars, the Earth, and S- and C-type asteroids all falling between δD values of −100‰ and −590‰. This homogeneity is in accord with the ‘Grand tack’ model of Solar System formation, where giant planet migration causes the S- and C-type asteroids to be mixed within 1 AU to eventually form the terrestrial planets. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The origin, history and role of water in the evolution of the inner Solar System’.


Antiquity ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 37 (147) ◽  
pp. 213-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. F. Libby

The first test of the accuracy of dates obtained by the radiocarbon technique was made by determining whether dates so obtained agreed with the historical dates for materials of known age (n. 1). The validity of the radiocarbon method continues to be an important question, especially in the light of the numerous results that have been accumulated and the greater precision of the technique during the past few years (n. 2).The radiocarbon content of the biosphere depends on three supposedly independent geophysical quantities: (i) the average cosmic ray intensity over a period of 8000 years (the average life of radiocarbon) as measured in our solar system but outside the earth's magnetic field (n. 1); (ii) the magnitude (but not the orientation, because of the relatively rapid mixing over the earth's surface) of the magnetic field in the vicinity of the earth, averaged over the same period (n. 1,3); and (iii) the degree of mixing of the oceans during the same period (n. 1). The question of the accuracy of radiocarbon dates therefore is of interest to geophysicists in general as well as to the archaeologists, geologists and historians who use the dates.Previous workers in this area (n. 1, 2) have reported some discrepancies, and it is the purpose here to consider the matter further.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Williams

By The Standards of The Solar System, Where are found the only comparable bodies of whose existence we have certain knowledge, the earth is not a large planet. For most of recorded history, on the other hand, it has certainly seemed so to its inhabitants, and only in recent decades has a different perception come to prevail, as instanced, for example, by the much-remarked Ward-Dubos book of 1972, Only One Earth — The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. In 1872 Phileas Fogg needed almost eighty days to go around the world, in 1961 Yuri Gagarin managed the feat in little more than eighty minutes, and nowadays less intrepid travellers than these think nothing of accomplishing the task using commercial aircraft in comfortably less than eighty hours. Photographic images and, in general, data of unlimited complexity meanwhile circle the globe virtually instantaneously. The technologies here are those of transport and communications but in most other areas of human activity too the twentieth century has seen similar technological strides.


Author(s):  
John F. Caddy

An experimental dowsing of the planetary and lunar bodies of the solar system suggests that all planetary and lunar names evoke some degree of energetic excitation reflecting that of the bodies themselves. The highest values of pranic energy were found for Jupiter and the other large distant planets, and for moons close to their planet which are subject to gravitational forces and show volcanic activity. The Earth, Venus and Mars show similar moderate-high levels of pranic energy, but the low-moderate scores for pranic energy shown by Mercury and the Sun seem to verify that subtle energy production is incompatible with high production or high levels of conventional photonic radiation. A short discussion of the implications of these observations follows.


1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
A.C.M. Laing

The theory of continental drift is criticised for being based on a number of fallacies.The fallacies discussed include polar wandering and Permian glaciation in Australia. Both are regarded as nonexistent. Data are presented to indicate firstly that Australia has grown by continental accretion and secondly that this growth has taken place under a horizontal stress directed outwards from the Pacific Basin. It is postulated that this horizontal stress is caused by a gradually intensifying bump in the liquid core of the earth, which is believed to have formed in the condensation and accretion stage of the solar system, mainly from two lumps of different composition and properties, one now constituting the Pacific Basin, the other the remainder of the Earth.A corollary to this hypothesis is that the structural equivalents of the petroliferous basins of North America lie under the Tasman, Coral, and Timor seas.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Pinto ◽  
Patrícia Goncalves ◽  
Wojciech Hajdas ◽  
Patryk Socha

<p>The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) is the European Space Agency (ESA) next large class mission to the Jovian system. The mission, scheduled to launch in 2022, will investigate Jupiter and characterize its icy moons, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede for a period of 3.5 years after a 7.5-year cruise to the planet. JUICE is planned to flyby Europa and Callisto, perform a high latitude tour of the Jovian system, and finally, at the end of the mission, it will orbit Ganymede at different altitudes inside the moon’s intrinsic magnetosphere.<br /><br />While radiation is one of the major threats for all Space missions, in the Jovian system this problem is exacerbated due to the existent of very large fluxes of energetic electrons, with energies up to dozens of MeV, which can damage and eventually destroy the spacecraft systems. The existence of this electron population, and to a lesser extent of a proton and heavy ion population, is a consequence of Jupiter’s huge magnetosphere which can accelerate these particles to energies higher than those found in other known planetary magnetospheres. Although the Galileo mission, and to a lesser extent the Cassini, Pioneer and Voyager missions have provided ample information about the radiation environment in the Jovian, several questions about particle origin, acceleration mechanisms, Jovian-Solar magnetosphere coupling, and overall dynamics of the system still need to be answered with implications in magnetospheric physics, astrobiology and others, as well as in development of future manned and unmanned missions to both the inner and outer Solar System.<br /><br />For these reasons, the JUICE mission will include the RADiation hard Electron Monitor (RADEM), a low power, low mass radiation monitor, that will increase the range of long-term spectral measurements acquired by the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) aboard the Galileo spacecraft, from 11 to 40 MeV for electrons and from 55 to 250 MeV for protons. RADEM consists of three detector heads based on traditional silicon stack detector technologies: the Electron Detector Head (EDH), the Proton Detector Head (PDH), and the Heavy Ion Detector Head (HIDH), that will measure electrons from 0.3 MeV to 40 MeV, protons from 5 MeV to 250 MeV and Heavy Ions from Helium to Oxygen with energies from 8 to 670 MeV, respectively. Because the detectors have limited Field-Of-View, a fourth detector, the Directionality Detector Head (DDH) will measure electron angular distributions which can vary greatly along the Jovian System as observed by the Galileo spacecraft.<br /><br />Although RADEM is a housekeeping instrument that will provide in-situ Total Ionizing Dose (TID) measurements and serve as a radiation level alarm, it has a broad scientific potential. Besides the Jovian system, the instrument will be fully operated during the cruise of the Solar System, which includes three Earth flybys, a Venus flyby and a Mars flyby, that offer additional scientific opportunities including but not limited to studying the cosmic ray gradient in the Solar System, characterizing Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events, and others. In this work, we will present RADEM from a technical point-of-view, as well as the scientific opportunities that will be addressed by the radiation monitor during the JUICE mission.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Zeng ◽  
Huan Xu ◽  
Qiuyun Liu

The Earth is orbiting away from the Sun each year, and so are the other planets in the solar system. The Sun loses small amount of mass via the emission of photons and cosmic particles, and the slight decrease of solar gravitational pull results in the minute expansion of the orbits of the planets. Cumulatively, the universe is expanding. The gaseous feature of large planets can be explained by the more extensive volcanoes than that on the Earth. The slower deceleration of larger mass and faster acceleration of smaller mass triggered by Jupiter’s gravitational pull may result in sunspot.Therefore, starspots can be harnessed for the search of orbiting exoplanets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 64-78
Author(s):  
Milos Cojanovic

In this paper, we will show that in addition to measuring annual and diurnal stellar aberration it is also possible 7 directly to measure the angle of secular aberration caused by the motion of the solar system relative to other 8 stars. In the manuscript [1] we dealt with this problem and gave a short description of a special telescope. Using 9 such a telescope we would be able to measure the exact position of the cosmic objects and thus eliminate errors 10 that occur due to the stellar aberration. Assuming that the tube of the telescope is filled with some optical 11 medium [2], we will show that this does not significantly affect the measurement of the stellar aberration angle, 12 but also that these differences are still large enough to enable us to determine the velocity at which the solar 13 system moves relative to the other stars.


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