Newsgroup: it.discussioni.misteri
Titolo: News di varie forme e colori

Scientists estimate 30 billion Earths
Astronomers say there could be billions of Earths in our galaxy, the Milky
Way. Their assessment comes after the discovery of the 100th exoplanet - a
planet that circles a star other than our own. The latest find is a gas
giant, just like all the other exoplanets so far detected, and orbits a
Sun-like star 293 light-years away. Scientists say they are now in a
position to try to estimate how many planets may exist in the galaxy and
speculate on just how many could be like the Earth. The answer in both cases
is billions. Virtually all the stars out to about 100 light-years distant
have been surveyed. Of these 1,000 or so stars, about 10% have been found to
possess planetary systems. So, with about 300 billion stars in our galaxy,
there could be about 30 billion planetary systems in the Milky Way alone;
and a great many of these systems are very likely to include Earth-like
worlds, say researchers. The 100th new planet circles the star HD 2039. It
was found by astronomers using the Anglo-Australian Telescope as part of the
Carnegie Institution Planet Search Program. The Jupiter-sized world circles
its star every 1,210 days at a distance of about 320 million kilometres (200
million miles). Astronomer Dr Jean Schneider, who compiles the Extrasolar
Planets Catalogue, told BBC News Online: "The 100th planet is symbolic and
important. "The first discoveries concentrated on short orbital periods
because of the limited timebase of observations. Now, we are learning more
about the statistics of long orbital periods and know to what extent our own
Jupiter is exceptional or not." With the new world, astronomers say that
they have just about finished surveying all the Sun-like stars out to a
distance of 100 light-years from Earth. Current planet detection
technology - based on the "wobble" induced in the parent star by the
gravitational pull of the orbiting planet - can only detect worlds about the
mass of Saturn or larger. Earth-sized worlds are too small to be seen.
But even in this "biased" survey of giants, the smaller worlds predominate -
which makes astronomers think that Earth-like worlds do exist. They may even
be as common as Jupiter-sized exoplanets. And if stellar statistics gathered
in our local region of space are applied to our galaxy of 300 billion stars,
then there may be 30 billion Jupiter-like worlds and perhaps as many
Earth-like worlds as well. Astronomers will have to wait for a new
generation of space-based telescopes incorporating advanced detectors before
they can detect Earth-sized worlds orbiting other stars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2078507.stm
------------
Astronomers Hope to Find E.T. in Next 25 Years
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Scientists searching the stars for aliens are convinced
an E.T. is out there -- it's just that they haven't had the know-how to
detect such a being. But now technological advances have opened the way for
scientists to check millions of previously unknown star systems,
dramatically increasing the chances of finding intelligent life in outer
space in the next 25 years, the world's largest private extraterrestrial
agency believes. "We're looking for needles in the haystack that is our
galaxy, but there could be thousands of needles out there," Seth Shostak,
the senior astronomer at California's non-profit Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI) Institute, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "If
that's the case, with the number of new star systems we now hope to check,
we should find one of those in the next 25 years." But Shostak, visiting
Australia to attend a conference on extraterrestrial research, said
detecting alien life, like the big-eyed alien in the film E.T., was only the
start. "Even if we detect life out there, we'll still know nothing about
what form of life we have detected and I doubt they'll be able -- or want --
to communicate with us," Shostak said. Since it was founded in 1984, the
SETI Institute has monitored radio signals, hoping to pick up a transmission
from outer space. Its Project Phoenix conducts two annual three-week
sessions on a radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Project Phoenix,
widely seen as the inspiration for the 1997 film "Contact" starring Jodie
Foster, which depicted a search for life beyond earth, is the privately
funded successor to an original NASA ( news - web sites) program that was
canceled in 1993 amid much skepticism by the U.S. Congress.
But the search has been slow. About 500 of 1,000 targeted stars have been
examined -- and no extraterrestrial transmissions have been detected.
"We do get signals all the time but when checked out they have all been
human made...and are not from E.T., more AT&T," said Shostak. He said the
privately-funded institute was developing a giant $26 million telescope to
start operating in 2005 that can search the stars for signals at least 100
times faster. The so-called Allen Telescope Array, named after sponsor and
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is a network of more than 350, 20-foot
satellite dishes with a collecting area exceeding that of a 338-foot
telescope. The Allen array, to be built at the Hat Creek Observatory about
290 miles northeast of San Francisco, will also expand the institute's
stellar reconnaissance to 100,000 or even one million nearby stars,
searching 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Shostak said he is convinced
there is intelligent life out there -- but don't expect to find a loveable,
boggle-eyed E.T.. He said if any aliens share the same carbon-based organic
chemistry as humans, they would probably have a central processing system,
eyes, a mouth or two, legs and some form of reproduction. But Shostak thinks
any intelligent extraterrestrial life will have gone light years beyond the
intelligence of man. "What we are more likely to hear will be so far beyond
our own level that it might not be biological anymore but some artificial
form of life," he said. "Don't expect a blobby, squishy alien to be on the
end of the line."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20020716/s
c_nm/science_australia_aliens_dc_1
--------------
"El Dorado" discovered in Peruvian Amazon, explorers claim
Lima, Jul 27, 2002 (EFE via COMTEX) -- An international team of explorers
claims to have found the legendary Inca city of gold that the Spanish knew
as "El Dorado," deep in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. The quest began on
June 30, when more than two dozen researchers began combing the wild and
unexplored jungle region along the basin of the Madre de Dios River. El
Dorado, called "Paititi" by the region's Indian population, is known as the
last bastion of the Incas as they sought refuge from advancing Spanish
conquistadors. The leader of the expedition, the Polish-Italian journalist
and explorer Jacek Palkiewicz, told EFE Saturday he was very pleased with
the expedition and felt "certain" he had found El Dorado. After two years of
research and exploration, Palkiewicz said, the lost city had been found in
an area adjoining the Manu national park, southeast of Lima. The journey to
El Dorado has allowed the researchers to confirm all the written accounts
and myths surrounding the lost city, including reports that it was a 10-day
walk from Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire.
Palkiewicz said he was most surprised to learn that stories of the city
being under a lake were completely accurate.
The lake has been discovered in a four-square-kilometer (1.5-square-mile)
plateau totally covered in vegetation. Russian specialists taking part in
the expedition used terrestrial radar to confirm the existence of an
underwater network of caverns and tunnels. According to legend, the
treasures of the last Inca rulers were buried under the lake. He added that
a final extensive expedition would be carried out in October and would
include scientists specializing in the study of caves. Palkiewicz said he
had found traces of pre-Inca constructions, which indicate that the Incas
had only begun to colonize the area shortly before arrival of the Spanish
conquistadors. The man described by Britain's Guardian newspaper as a
"self-styled academic" did not rule out the existence of other Inca
constructions, but said the dense jungle and the region's torrential rains
prevented the team from investigating further. The expedition, which was
made up of scientists from Argentina, Italy, Poland, Russia and Peru, used
terrestrial radar and satellites to locate the lost city. The journey was
planned after two previous visits to the area and was given a further boost
by the discovery of a 16th-century manuscript ostensibly proving that El
Dorado had been discovered by Jesuit missionaries. In the manuscript, which
was found in the Vatican archives of the Society of Jesus, the pope
authorizes the Jesuits to evangelize the Indians of Paititi. Palkiewicz, a
teacher of survival skills who has written some 20 books about his journeys
to the most remote areas of the planet, has extensive experience in the
Amazon jungles. In 1996, he led another expedition that succeeded in
locating the true source of the Amazon River. His most recent expedition had
a budget of more than $1 million and received the symbolic support of
Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, Poland's Aleksander Kwasniewski and
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Efforts to locate the legendary
city began with the arrival of Spanish conquerors in 1532. Rumors of a
jungle city that supposedly held priceless treasures to be used to pay the
ransom of the last Inca ruler, Atahualpa, prompted searches of the region.
Many previous El Dorado expeditions ended in disaster on account of the
region's hostile environment and difficult terrain. One such failed
expedition took place in 1925, when famous British explorer Col. Peter
Fawcett disappeared in western Brazil while looking for the city. In 1970, a
French-American expedition led by Serge Debru disappeared, most likely at
the hands of Huachipairi Indians. A 1997 expedition led by Norwegian
anthropologist Lars Hafksjold also disappeared after setting out for the
Madidi River, not far from the site of Palkiewicz's discovery.
http://library.northernlight.com/FB20020727450000013.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#
doc
-----------------
M.

E ancora...
Prehistoric Chinese city brought to light
HEFEI, July 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese archeologists have brought to light
ruins of an ancient city dating back 5,500 years, the earliest ever found in
China's prolonged, agricultural-dominant history. After several rounds of
excavations, archeologists are able to confirm that the Lingjiatan relic
site in east China's Anhui province was once a bustling city with booming
art handicrafts, textile and processing industries. The site had been lying
beneath an expanse of rice paddies and vegetable plots in the Chaohu Lake
drainage area between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers, until it was discovered
in 1987. From the 1.6 million-square-meter site, experts have unearthed a
residential area with intricately designed houses, a 3,000-square-meter
square paved with red pottery pieces and a graveyard with an altar and 66
graves. "The square must have been a political, military and cultural center
of the city, where local residents used to gather for meetings and perform
religious rituals, and soldiers for drills," said Zhang Jingguo, a noted
archeologist with the Anhui ProvincialInstitute of Archeology, who has
headed the excavation. Zhang and his colleagues have also unearthed a well,
a moat, a stoneware workshop, three mammoth stone structures and more than
1,300 sacrificial pieces: pottery, stoneware, jade figurines and jade
turtles imprinted with augury patterns. Fixed abodes, large-scale temples,
defense works and workshops are key evident factors to determine whether an
origin of a civilization makes a city, according to Prof. Dong Jianhong, an
established specialist in urban history from the prestigious Shanghai-based
Tongji University. Experts say the discovery of the prehistoric city has
predated the origin of Chinese cities by over 1,000 years and could also
extend China's recorded history to 8,000 or even 10,000 years, from what was
previously known to be around 5,000 years. Prior to the discovery, it was
widely accepted that China's earliest city was formed some 4,000 years ago
in today's Dantu Village, Wulian County of Rizhao City, in east China's
Shandong province.
Jade pieces unearthed from the site have aroused particular attention among
archeologists. "Those ancient city dwellers must have mastered advanced jade
processing techniques," Zhang said after studying the texture of the jade
pieces through a
stereomicroscope. Besides, all the jade figurines wear tartan hats and
cross-stitched belts, a sign of a much advanced textile industry and
proficient knitting skills. "Obviously, those ancestors of the Chinese
nation already wore threaded and hemp-made clothes rather than 'leaves and
animal pelts' as some people used to claim," said Zhang. Archeologists will
go on with their excavation of the ruins this fall in an effort to solve
more mysteries of the ancient city.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2002-07/29/content_502251.htm
M.