Newsgroup: it.scienza.astronomia
Titolo: L'ESA taglia la missione Eddington

Ciao!
Un'altra vittima dei bilanci sempre più risicati dell'ESA, ed in 
generale, del mondo aerospaziale.
La missione Eddington, pensata per scovare nuovi pianeti extrasolari, 
è stata infatti cassata dall'ESA, insieme alla completa rivisitazione 
della missione BepiColombo.
Segue il comunicato ufficiale dell'ESA:
*****
Critical decisions on Cosmic Vision
 
7 November 2003
ESA PR 75-2003. At its 105th meeting, on 5/6 November, ESA's Science 
Programme Committee (SPC) made important decisions concerning the 
Cosmic Vision programme. Due to the current financial exigencies and 
an outlook with no budget increase or other relief, the SPC was forced 
to cancel the Eddington mission and rescope the BepiColombo mission.
 
Eddington had two aims, both remarkable and very pertinent to front-
line astronomical interests. The first was to look for Earth-like 
planets outside our solar system - one of the key goals in the search 
to understand how life came to be, how it is that we live where we do 
in the universe and whether there are other potential life-supporting 
environments 'out there'. At the same time it was going to follow the 
path that the ESA-NASA mission SOHO had taken with the Sun of using 
astroseismology to look 'inside' stars. In the longer term, the loss 
of this one mission will not stop ESA and the scientific community 
pursuing the grand quests to which it would have contributed. 
The loss of the BepiColombo lander is also hard to take 
scientifically. ESA, in conjunction with the Japanese space agency, 
JAXA, will still put two orbiters around Mercury but the ‘ground 
truth’ provided by the lander is a big loss. However, to land on a 
planet so near the Sun is no small matter and was a bridge too far in 
present circumstances, and this chance for Europe to be first has 
probably been lost. 
The origins of the problems were recognised at the ESA Council meeting 
held in June. Several sudden demands on finance occurred in the 
spring, the most obvious and public being the unforeseen Ariane 5 
grounding in January, delaying the launches of Rosetta and Smart-1. A 
temporary loan of EUR 100 million was granted, but must be paid back 
out of present resources by the end of 2006.
ESA's SPC was therefore caught in a vice. Immediate mission starts had 
to be severely limited and the overall envelope of the programme 
contained. 
With this week’s decisions, the SPC has brought the scope of the 
Cosmic Vision programme down to a level that necessarily reflects the 
financial conditions rather than the ambitions of the scientific 
community. 
A long and painful discussion during the SPC meeting resulted in the 
conclusion that only one new mission can be started at this time, 
namely LISA Pathfinder, the technical precursor to the world’s first 
gravitational wave astronomical observatory, LISA. The LISA mission 
itself (to be carried out in cooperation with the United States) is 
scheduled for launch in 2012. 
ESA's Cosmic Vision, set to last until 2012, is a living programme. It 
has to adapt constantly to the available funding as well as respond to 
the expectations of the scientific community, and to technological 
developments. Within these boundaries, the decisions made by the SPC 
try to maximise the outcome of Cosmic Vision across disciplines, 
keeping it challenging and at the same time affordable. Nonetheless, 
there are many European scientists with ambitions that exceed the 
programme’s ability to respond.
For further information:
ESA Media Relations Division
Tel.: 
+ 331 5369 7155
 
*****
-- 
Marco Zambianchi
Gruppo Astrofili DEEP SPACE - Lecco Member
Italian Space Society Member
British Interplanetary Society Member

 della missione BepiColombo.
A proposito di nuovi pianeti extrasolari:
Ho letto ieri sul settimanale Gente di circa un mese
fa, nella sala di aspetto del mio dottore, che i alcuni
ricercatori di una Università americana di cui non
ricordo il nome, ne avrebbero scoperti circa 5.000
con caratteristiche simili a quelle terrestri dove ci
si può essere sviluppata una qualche forma di vita!
Il suddetto giornale precisava nell'articolo, che le
citate "caratteristiche terrestri", si riferivano a sistemi
con stelle singole e simili al Sole, sia come classe
spettrale che per luminosità, che i pianeti in questione,
avevano una distanza dalla loro stella, variabile tra 150
e 200.000.000 di Km.
E' possibile? Solo qualche mese fa in un trattato
scientifico avevo letto che grazie ad alcuni satelliti di
recente lancio e operanti nella gamma dei raggi X, si
sono potute vedere, intorno a stelle molto vicine, delle
zone in cui si può prevedere l'esistenza di pianeti di tipo
gioviano in orbita intorno a loro, ma da qui ad essere certi
che questi pianeti ci siano veramente, che siano di tipo e
dimensioni terrestri, che ci siano sicuramente anche intorno
a stelle lontane, ed anche misurarne la distanza dalla stella
mi pare una grande differenza....
Ma per vedere 5.000 stelle di tipo solare a quanti anni luce
di distanza bisogna spingerci con la ricerca? E a quella
distanza si riesce ad essere sicuri che ci sia il pianeta di
dimensioni terrestri intorno alla stella? Misurarne anche la
distanza?
Sono rimasto molto indietro io o sono loro che tirano
bufale?
Grazie a tutti per le eventuali risposte...