Oregon Daily
THURSDAY, JULY 14,1994
85°
LOW
50°
H«lm«t. The band tries
to follow up tfx>ir debut
album Meantime
3
Cosmic crash.
Jupiter and comet meet
with a bang
4
Rud« hottMcoming. Ems
drop first game of home
stand to Yakima
Nf*l
(
COMMUNITY
Old artillery shell
found under bridge
Bomb: Navy divers recover unexploded shell from
under Ferry Street Bridge, traffic comes to a halt
By Edward Klopfenstein
For the Oregon lAvty Emerald
U.S. Navy divers removed a World War II era artillery shell from
underneath the Kerry Street Bridge Wednesday, stopping rush-hour
traffic for about an hour as crews transported the bomb to a area just
outside of town.
By mid-morning, the five member Navy team from Whidbev
Island. Washington, detonated a secondary charge to the outside
shell and blew it up, said Kugene Public Safety Department
spokesman Tim Birr
The bomb was destroyed at a disposal site at the Dave Burks
Regional Training Facility near Short Mountain.
If it had been a standard shell, it would have held lr> pounds of
high explosives, enough to rain shrapnel across five football fields
"It's a surprise." Birr said. "How it got there, we don't know."
The years spent on the river bottom deactivated the detonator and
could have affected the charge, which would have effectively deat ■
Turn to SHELL, Page 4
Astronomers are watching
for Jupiter-comet collision
Crash: Observatories
around the globe trained
on event
By David Thorn
Oregon Iki y Emerald
As thev Iriiin their instru
ments on tin- planet Jupiter
beginning July 16, astronomers
at the University's Pine Moun
tain Observatory will t>e joining
many of the world's other sky
watchers.
Beginning that day, the 21
massive remnants of a broken
comet will start crashing into
Jupiter's gaseous surface, in
what will be the largest such
collision within our solar sys
teni to be recorded in human
history.
"W© have no idea what to
expect." said Greg Bothun,
director of Pine Mountain and
an associate professor of physics
at the University. "We're just
hoping to monitor the planet for
the next week and see what the
data looks like.*'
The event is unique not only
I recause of its scale, but also
because it has been anticipated
by astronomers.
“This is the first collision of a
kilometer-sized object that
we've known about in
advance," Bothun said "The
technology for knowing (that an
object is on a collision course)
has only existed for about a
hundred years."
The comet called Shoemaker
Levy 9 was first discovered in
March, 1993, by California-based
astronomers Eugene and Carolyn
Shoemaker and David l.evy.
It was already in pie< es by
then. Nine months earlier, in
July 1992. it had passed too
close to Jupiter and was torn
apart by tidal forces i a used hv
the massive gravitational pull of
the planet.
Even in pier es. the comet has
almost completed another orbit
of Jupiter an orbit that will come
to an abrupt end beginning this
weekend
The impacting comet frag
ments ranging in size from one
half to two-and-one-half miles
in diameter will enter Jupiter's
atmosphere at a speed of .17
miles a second.
Scientists are divided over
what will happen to the pieces
after that Some expect them to
break up almost immediately,
possibly creating an awesome
meteor shower
Others think the fragments
will plunge deep into Jupiter's
dense atmosphere, until the
gravitational pressure of the
solar system's largest planet
causes each piece to vaporize
and explode in a massive fire
ball. similar to a nuclear explo
sion, only many thousands of
times larger.
Some estimates have placed
the power of that explosion at
between 200 and 20,000 times
the explosive energy of the
world’s entire nuclear arsenal.
The enormous blast will
occur on the far side of Jupiter,
out of sight from Earth. But the
lack of optically visible effects
isn't stopping Hothuu and
legions of other astronomers
from directing their attention
Turn to CRASH, Page 4
Lee Carpenter (above), one of the
producers of Worm Digest
Magazine, which helped organize
Uday Bhawalker's speech
Wednesday, mixes compost Into
her worm trough.
These red worms (left), also
colled "red wlgglers, “ can eat up
to halt of their body weight In
compost every day.
p***» t>r l SHJNfxi at ’vmi
Worms hold key to waste management
Wigglers: Naturally turn garbage
into soil enhancing fertilizers
By Don Reynolds
fv> Oegun (lady f mwjM
The key to a more sustainable future may h«
wriggling a few inches under our foot. said par
ticipants at a Eugene workshop last night.
“Welcome to a real awakening in the world of
worms," Stephen White, one of the cosponsors
of the workshop, told 40 or so gardening enthu
siasts.
Earthworms can process tons of garbage every
day. turning it Into a humus- rich soil. Worm
farmers can address two problems at once:
waste management and soil depletion.
"Every square foot of soil is a recycling cen
ter.” said featured speaker IIday Hhawalker
Hhawalker, founder of the Hhawalker Earth
worm Research Institute, of Pune, India, said
that earthworm biotechnology can he used to
nourish home gardens and to dispose of
Turn to WORMS, Page 4