THIS MONTH WE WILL EXPLORE EVIDENCE of the first European explorers, along with evidence of strange new worlds both inside and outside our solar system, and breakthroughs in medicine.

Hubble spots an icy world far beyond Pluto
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has measured the largest object in the solar system ever seen since the discovery of Pluto 72 years ago. Approximately half the size of Pluto, the icy world 2002 LM60, dubbed "Quaoar" (pronounced kwa-whar) by its discoverers, is the farthest object in the solar system ever to be resolved by a telescope. Quaoar is about 4 billion miles away, well over a billion miles farther than Pluto presently is. Unlike Pluto, its orbit around the Sun is very circular, even more than that of most of the solar system's planetary-class bodies. Although smaller than Pluto, Quaoar is greater in volume than all the asteroids combined (though probably only one-third the mass of the asteroid belt). Quaoar's composition is theorized to be largely ices mixed with rock, not unlike that of a comet, though 100 million times greater in volume.

New vitamin grows bone
A novel form of vitamin D has been shown to grow bone in the lab and in experimental animals, a result that holds promise for the estimated 44 million Americans, mostly post-menopausal women, who suffer from or are at risk for the bone-wasting disease osteoporosis. The research, conducted by a team of scientists led by biochemist Hector F. DeLuca at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was reported this week (Sept. 30) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a leading scientific journal. "We've got a compound that is very selective for bone," says DeLuca. "It is very effective in animals," increasing bone density significantly in rats with a condition that mimics human osteoporosis, and can be used in the lab to grow bone in culture. This compound could be the most potent vitamin D compound ever seen.

Researchers find evidence that antarctic ice stream has reversed its flow
It is virtually impossible for a river or a stream to first stop its flow and then reverse course. But an Antarctic ice stream has done just that and scientists from the University of Washington and other institutions are trying to figure out exactly why. "It's quite remarkable that an ice stream would reverse its flow direction," said Howard Conway, a University of Washington glaciologist who has extensively studied the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where the stream is located.

The new work by Conway and his colleagues demonstrates that there is a great deal of variability in the Ross Sea stream system during geologically short periods of 1,000 years or less. If the section of the ice sheet now flowing into the Whillans stream continues to gain speed, the Ross Sea sector of the ice sheet could start to thin again, Conway said. That would leave scientists to puzzle whether the recent thickening has simply been part of short-term variability or if, in fact, it marks the end of the shrinking that's gone on for more than seven millennia, he said.

Astronomers discover the wake of a planet around a nearby star
An international team of astronomers has reported the discovery of a huge distorted disk of cold dust surrounding Fomalhaut - one of the brightest stars in the sky. The most likely cause of the distortion is the gravitational influence of a Saturn-like planet at a large distance from the star tugging on the disk. This provides some of the strongest evidence so far that Solar Systems similar in size, or even bigger than our own, are likely to exist.

Scientists determine age of New World map
Scientists from the University of Arizona, the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Smithsonian Institution have used carbon-dating technology to determine the age of a controversial parchment that might be the first-ever map of North America. In a paper to be published in the August 2002 issue of the journal Radiocarbon, the scientists conclude that the so-called "Vinland Map" parchment dates to approximately 1434 AD, or nearly 60 years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the West Indies.

Hubble spots an icy world far beyond Pluto
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/17/
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/10/07/ice.object/index.html
http://www.space.com/spacenews/spacenews_briefs.html

New vitamin grows bone
http://www.news.wisc.edu/view.html?get=7871

Researchers find evidence that antarctic ice stream has reversed its flow
http://www.geophys.washington.edu/News/glaciers/index.html
http://www.geophys.washington.edu/Surface/Glaciology/PROJECTS/Scars/welcome.html

Astronomers discover the wake of a planet around a nearby star
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/

Scientists determine age of New World map
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2002/bnlpr072902a.htm
http://www.radiocarbon.org

© 2002 Marc Timm

We invite you to share your experiences, opinions and questions on this article. Please visit the PLW Community and leave your comments.