SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Workshop Brings Scientists Closer
For three days this week, scientists from major universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and UCLA pored over photographs and computer images, searching for clues to the birth of the mysterious mountain ranges of Venus.
And although they didn’t emerge from the workshop with any earth-shaking scientific discoveries, scientists from a variety of backgrounds learned something more basic--the spirit of cooperation.
The conference at the San Juan Institute, which concluded Wednesday, focused on the towering mountain ranges and other planetary features of Venus, currently being mapped by the Magellan probe. Planetary (solar system) and terrestrial (Earth) scientists, who sometimes view each other’s work with suspicion, were brought together at the workshop to compare notes.
“We’re getting people working in a creative environment,” said John Suppe, a geophysics professor from Princeton University. “Each (different area of science) has interests and insights that they can give.”
Leigh Royden, a professor of terrestrial science at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., is used to working with planetary materials no farther away than under her feet.
An expert in plate tectonics, the study of massive shelves of rock under the earth’s crust, Royden said she had “almost no knowledge of Venus” before the conference.
Learning about the topography of Venus--including a lava trail stretching 4,000 miles, strange 15-mile-wide lava “pancakes,” and an amazing 600-mile-long canyon--sparked “a real interest in learning more about other planets,” she said. “To look at pictures of planets millions of miles from ours, it’s pretty exciting.”
Duane Bindschadler, a geophysics scientist at UCLA who specializes in Venus research, works with a different medium. Instead of rock samples, Bindschadler spends long hours inspecting thousands of photographs and computer-enhanced scenes of the Venusian surface.
Terrestrial scientists “can be a little suspicious of our work,” he said. “I think the workshop gained us a lot more respect from them in the difficulty of dealing with images and trying to understand those images. I think this conference was a great motivator and gave us the tools to do long-term research together.”
Conference participants took a long look at the mountain of information about Venus being gathered by the Magellan satellite, which has taken radar pictures of the bright, golden-orange planet since entering orbit in August, 1990.
With each circle around Venus, another 12-mile-wide, 10,000-mile-long section of the planet is mapped. Much of the data, including the photo images, is stored on compact discs, Bindschadler said.
Immensely successful, the mission has made Venus the most studied, best-known planet in the solar system outside of Earth, say NASA project coordinators.
“Venus is probably more well-mapped than the Earth,” Suppe said.
Although most of the material discussed at the workshop will be filed away as pure research, some of what scientists learn from Venus could be useful in oil exploration and predicting earthquakes, Suppe said.
Local educators attended a seminar on Venus at the institute Thursday.
“We’re building up a reservoir of knowledge,” Royden said. “Our main motivation is knowledge. People want to know about these things. People want to explore.”
