May 29 1985
From The Space Library
Finland and Sweden would together build measuring equipment for two Mars space probes for launch in three years by the USSR, FBIS, Helsinki Domestic Service in Finnish reported. The work was significant, the service quoted Risto Pellinen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute as saying, because it was the first time Finns would build equipment to be launched into space.
Altogether 11 countries and the European Space Agency would participate in the program. The Mars probes would study solar winds, the planet itself, its near surroundings, and its two moons (Phobos and Deimos). Finland with Sweden would build equipment to measure the nature and characteristics of space particles.
Participants and funding sources for the Finnish program were the Center for the Development of Technology, the Academy of Finland, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Scientific-Technical Cooperation Committee of the Foreign Ministry, and the Meteorological Institute. (FBIS, Helsinki Domestic Service in Finnish, May 29/85)
Dr. Paul Scully-Power, the first oceanographer to orbit the earth, said today at a Baltimore meeting of the American Geophysical Union, that he had observed previously undetected spiral currents in many parts of the world's oceans while he was aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, the NY Times reported. Oceanographers at the meeting said these eddies introduced an entirely new dimension to studies of ocean dynamics.
Scully-Power had seen the eddies, for example, throughout the Mediterranean and between the east coast of the U.S. and the Gulf Stream; they were typically about 25 miles wide, far smaller than large eddies observed in the Gulf Stream. It was the great prevalence of these swirls, whose origin was yet unexplained, that astounded scientists.
Scully-Power said he did not know how long each eddy survived, but guessed it might be days or weeks. Nor did he know how deeply into the ocean they extended.
At the meeting, Scully-Power displayed one photograph of five such spirals in the eastern Mediterranean, all aligned in a single row. (NYT, May 31/85, A15)
M. Peter McPherson, head of the Agency for International Development (AID), said a U.S.-financed and -built satellite weather-alert system may have given Bangladesh up to 24 hours notice of a devastating cyclone that killed approximately 10,000 people, the Washington Times reported. The advance notice may have saved "a substantial number of lives," along coastal areas of the Bay of Bengal, McPherson said.
McPherson pointed out that the satellite system in Bangladesh, developed in phases since 1978 by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and AID warned of the storm. He said Bangladesh technicians had tracked the cyclone for four days and had the capability of predicting landfall and wind speed within 18 to 24 hr. (W Times, May 29/85, 5A)
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