Show Date: December 13, 2004

NEW WORLDS AND OLD SHIPS
Pam Eastlick for the Marianas Variety

Greetings and welcome to The Deep column and the deepest radio show on Earth. The Deep is the science talk radio program that takes you from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of the universe. This week on The Deep hosted by Jim Sullivan and aired at 6:00 each Wednesday evening on K-57, we’ll visit some very strange planets and revisit the Titanic.

STRANGE WORLDS
Astronomers have recently discovered a new ‘planet’ in the icy reaches far beyond Pluto. We’ve known for at least 100 years that there is another asteroid belt beyond Pluto made of rocks and ice that never came together to form large planets. It’s called the Kuiper (Ky-per) Belt. But it’s so far away and the objects in it so small, that very little was known about it.

New telescopes and techniques have allowed us to learn more about the Kuiper Belt and we’ve discovered some surprising things. One of them is a largish object, too big to be called an asteroid. Scientists have named it Sedna, for the Inuit goddess of the sea and it’s probably around 1,000 miles across, about two-thirds the size of Pluto. It has an eccentric orbit like Pluto (the orbit is an elongated oval and not a circle) but it’s much longer. Sedna’s orbit ranges from 7 billion miles from the Sun to 90 billion miles away.

Sedna is an unusual color, a deep red, not dark like a rocky asteroid or light like an icy one and that long oval orbit is more like that of a comet than an asteroid. So how did Sedna get that way? Astronomers think Sedna may have begun life in the Kuiper Belt. Then, some time in the distance past another star may have come fairly close to the solar system and its gravity may have pulled Sedna into its current orbit. We know that most stars form in dense clusters and Sedna may be the first evidence that our Sun had near neighbors in its infancy. If more objects like Sedna are found, astronomers may be able to construct a picture of the Sun’s nursery mates.

Another Kuiper Belt object is called Quaoar (pronounced kwa-whar). It’s roughly 800 miles across and about 4 billion miles from the Sun. Unlike Sedna, Quaoar’s orbit is almost circular. Astronomers have recently discovered that Quaoar has traces of ammonia and crystalline water ice on its surface. Because it’s incredibly cold that far from the Sun, these substances shouldn’t be there and Quaoar was either recently hit by another object or it has volcanoes on its surface. Since the Kuiper Belt objects are so far apart, they wouldn’t collide very often and astronomers are leaning toward the ‘ice volcano’ scenario. Strange worlds indeed!

GOING EXTREMELY DEEP
Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the resting place of the famed ocean liner Titanic 19 years ago, has recently revisited the ship. He says that submersibles and cruise ships are accelerating the natural decay of the great ship, which lies in 12,500 feet of water in the northern Atlantic.
On his recent trip aboard a NOAA ship and using the submersible Hercules, he discovered scars on the deck caused by moored submersibles, collapsed bulkheads, and damage to the entrance of the grand staircase. The crow’s nest, from which Frederick Fleet had first spotted the iceberg that sent the mighty ship to a watery grave, has completely disappeared. Legal salvagers have also removed thousands of items from the debris field like gold coins, silver dinnerware, rings, and one of the ship’s bells.
In addition, Dr. Ballard says that the Titanic is now littered with modern-day refuse like ballast bags, mesh nets probably used by looters to remove objects, and beer bottles and plastic cups thrown overboard by people aboard cruise liners that sail over the site.

While it is true that the Titanic will naturally decay, there seems to be little question that human activity is speeding up the process. The Titanic is the grave of over 1600 people and she should be allowed to rest in peace. To paraphrase a famous quote “Leave no footprints, take only pictures”.
Join Jim Sullivan on The Deep every Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. on K-57 for a fascinating look at the deepest science on Earth. Don’t miss it!