Update: January 30, 2008

EXPLORATION AND HELIUM

By Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

EXAMINING THE ICE

It can crush ice sideways and stay precisely on station to an accuracy of three feet. It can drill a hole 3,000 feet deep into the seabed while floating 15,000 feet above it and it can generate 55 megawatts of power. So far, Aurora Borealis is the most unusual ship on the drawing board, and it represents a floating laboratory for European science, a breakthrough for polar research and a very big headache for international lawyers. Aurora Borealis will be the first international ship. It’s the brainchild of the European Science Federation, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Maritime Research and the Germany Federal Ministry of Research and Education. Russia has announced that it too will be a partner in launching this state-of-the-art research vessel, and other European nations may soon join the project. But there are no other international ships and there is no European flag; so under the international rules that govern the high seas, one nation must be responsible. The legal hassles may be ongoing, but there’s no denying the potential benefit the Aurora Borealis could provide to Arctic science. The ice over the polar seas masks millions of years of the planet’s history: drilling is difficult in freezing conditions. Aurora Borealis will be the world’s first icebreaker that is also a drilling ship. This sets unusual challenges for marine engineers: a ship at the top of 15,000 feet of drilling rig can’t afford to move very much in any direction. But a ship in far northern latitudes must not only contend with current and wind but those pesky icebergs. So Aurora Borealis is being designed not just to break the ice as it moves forward and astern, but also to port and starboard. Not only will the diesel-electric ship be the floating equivalent of a 55-megawatt power station, it will be an intellectual powerhouse as well. It will probe the role of polar waters in global climate change. Drill cores from the sea floor could answer questions about the geological history of the Arctic Ocean, and other instruments will measure the transport of contaminants through the air, water and ice. The vessel could be home to 120 people, more than half of them scientists who need to go to sea to study the ice, the ocean beneath and the history of the deep sea floor. It will be equipped with two “moon pools” in the bottom of the hull to give direct access to the open water beneath the ice, so that drillers can work in freezing conditions and biologists can launch underwater vehicles to study the mysterious processes that trigger an explosion of life in the polar seas every spring. Aurora Borealis is a long way from its maiden voyage. Design and preparation will continue for another three years with hull-laying possible in 2012. The multi-national backers hope that by 2014, Aurora Borealis will begin answering some of the great questions of ocean science. Now we travel from the chill waters of the Arctic to geosynchronous orbit to await the arrival of HMI. At least we won’t have to wait as long for the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager as we will for Aurora Borealis. The HMI is scheduled for launch in April of this year and its purpose study the weather on the sun—and maybe save an astronaut from dying of radiation sickness.

SEEING THE SUN

When an Atlas V missile lofts the HMI into geosynchronous orbit 22,500 miles above Earth, it will, with total disregard for the usual parental advice, stare directly into the Sun. For several years it will record, in unprecedented detail, the behavior of powerful magnetic fields in the Sun and the subtle surface undulations that surrender information about crucial activity deep within. Every two seconds, for at least five years, HMI will snap a high-resolution image and download it to a radio link in New Mexico producing an incredible pile of data. We need this incredible pile of data about our parent star because space travelers, airline pilots, communication satellites, electric lines, pipelines, telephones and radios all can be harmed when events on the Sun send unusually high amounts of solar particles streaming toward Earth. The Sun offers up a smorgasbord of these disruptive events. There are sunspots, operating on their 11-year cycle, solar flares, "coronal mass ejections" and the solar wind. To understand another major aspect of the HMI mission, think of the Sun as a giant bell with sound waves continuously rebounding around inside, the way seismic waves reverberate inside Earth. These sound waves, generated by hot, bubbling gases, cause small bulges on the sun's surface. To find them, HMI's instruments will measure the sun at 12 million different points. The speed and other characteristics of the waves will offer indications of the flows beneath the surface, possibly identifying precursor events that could provide advance warning of dangerous storms. The science is known as helioseismology, and it is no small task. To some extent, this has been done before, by HMI's predecessor on the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite. But while SOHO could see only a portion of the sun at any given time, HMI will provide a "full-disc" view at all times. HMI will be able to follow a developing solar event for the full 13 days it is visible, before the sun's rotation takes it from view. SOHO's view was limited to two days. HMI will see the entire sun, in high-definition, almost all the time, giving science a better understanding of the evolution of solar events. Watching the Sun. What a bright idea! And while HMI watches the Sun, a much more venerable telescope has just made its first observation in more than six months. So what caused the downtime for this major instrument? Was there a problem with its mirror or electronics? No, it just needed a fresh coat of paint. After all, it hadn’t had one in 40 years!

THE BIGGEST RADIO RECEIVER IN THE UNIVERSE!!

Arecibo Observatory, the largest telescope ever built by humans has gone back online in a sinkhole in Puerto Rico to study the largest electromagnetic waves in the universe, the radio waves. The gigantic paint job was critical for ensuring the observatory's safety and structural integrity. The telescope focused on the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which travels closer to the sun than any other asteroid -- about twice as close to the sun as the planet Mercury. Phaethon is the source of the Geminid meteor shower, which causes streams of shooting stars every December. Astronomers are studying Phaethon and other asteroids that have trajectories strongly affected by sunlight, sun shape and general relativity effects. Asteroid orbits are influenced by the absorption and re-emission of solar energy -- or the so-called Yarkovsky effect. Astronomers will use Arecibo radar measurements to understand the properties of near-Earth asteroids in one of dozens of projects now under way at the observatory. The six-month painting project -- the first time the Arecibo platform and focal point structure has received a thorough painting -- ended last November. Since then a skeletal crew of observatory staff worked around-the-clock to bring the 1,000-foot radio telescope and the planetary radar back to astronomical life. Now the observatory is fully functional, with all motion, electronic, transmitting and receiving, and computing systems operating. Arecibo is a very important instrument and it’s good to have it back online. Polar ice and oil aren’t the only substances that are rapidly disappearing from Mother Earth and our next story concerns one you may not be aware of.

UP, UP AND AWAY! AND GONE?

Our children may have to celebrate their birthdays a little bit differently in the future. Here on Earth we’re running out of the second most abundant element in the universe; helium. The element that lifts things like balloons, spirits and voice ranges is being depleted so rapidly in the world's largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that all that helium will be up, up and away within the next eight years. This deflates more than the Goodyear blimp and party favors. Its largest impact is on science and technology. Helium's use in science is extremely broad, but its most important use is as a coolant. Generally the larger users of helium (He), such as the national laboratories, can efficiently use and recycle helium, but the same can’t be said of many smaller scale users. Helium plays a role in nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectroscopy, welding, fiber optics and computer microchip production, among other technological applications. NASA uses large amounts annually to pressurize space shuttle fuel tanks. Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it." The helium we have on Earth has been built up over billions of years from the decay of natural uranium and thorium. The decay of these elements proceeds at a super-snail's pace. For example, one of the most important isotopes for helium production is uranium-238. In the entire life span of the earth only half of the uranium-238 atoms have decayed (yielding eight helium atoms in the process) and an inconsequential fraction decay in about 1,000 years. As the uranium and thorium decay, some of the helium is trapped along with natural gas deposits in certain geological formations. Some of the produced helium seeps out of the Earth's mantle and drifts into the atmosphere, where there is approximately five parts per million of helium. However this helium, as well as any helium ultimately released into the atmosphere by users, drifts up and is eventually lost to the Earth. There is, of course, a huge source of helium right next door (cosmically speaking). Our Sun is about 40% helium, but getting our supplies from the Sun certainly won’t be feasible until long after the supplies on Earth run out. Helium could eventually be produced directly in nuclear fusion reactors and is produced indirectly in nuclear fission reactors, but the quantities produced by such sources don’t even come close to supplying the demand. In addition to the Texas panhandle, helium can be found in small regions of Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma. It is marketed in Australia and Algeria. And Russia has the world's largest reserves of natural gas, where helium certainly exists. But there is no push to market it, as, for the short term, supplies are adequate, though increasingly costly. Russia will probably be the world's major source of helium in 30 years. The price of liquid helium has risen more than 50 percent over the past year. Helium capture in the United States began after World War I, when the primary use of the gas was for dirigibles. Because helium is non-flammable, its use in balloons prevented another Hindenburg tragedy. The U.S. government ran the helium industry for 70 years, but since the mid-90s it has been in the domain of the oil and natural gas industries. Helium plays second fiddle to marketing oil and natural gas, and much of it is lost in a process that removes noncombustible nitrogen and helium from the product of prime interest. Unfortunately, although there are alternate processes available for most run by oil and oil by-products; no alternate processes are available to produce helium. Up, up and away indeed! Cruise on over to the Deep Website at www.thedeepradioshow.com to learn more about today’s technology and many other topics. Enjoy!