University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, October 3, 1989
Nation/World
7
The Associated Press
Voyager 2 captures Triton eruption on film
PASADENA, Calif. — Voyager 2 photographed an active geyser or volcano on Triton blowing gasesum and frozen nitrogen five miles high, proving that Neptune's biggest moon is the solar system's third object with active eruptions, scientists said yesterday.
"We caught one in the act," said Ellis Miner, deputy Voyager project scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's jet propulsion laboratory.
A NASA news release called the
eruptions a "geyser-like phenomenon." But with five-mile-high plumes, they can be considered either volcanoes or giant geysers, said Brad Smith, leader of Voyager's photographic imaging team.
Earth and Io, a moon of Jupiter,
are the only other bodies in the solar
system known to have active volcanoes.
Io's volcanoes spew molten sulfur.
Images radioped to Earth when Voyager flew past Neptune and Triton in August showed dark, plume-shaped deposits of material lying on Triton's south polar ice cap. At the
time, scientists said they thought that the deposits were created by volcanoes spewing gas and ice 12 to 20 miles skyward. They said they believed the volcanoes were active or had been active in the past few hundred years.
But it wasn't until late last week that closer examination of Aug. 24 pictures taken from a distance of 62,000 miles revealed an eruption in progress, Miner said yesterday.
"Resembling a smokestack, the narrow stem of the dark plume rises nearly nearly five miles, forming a cloud that drifts 95 miles eastward
in Triton's winds," NASA said in a statement.
NASA made the announcement as Voyager 2 formally ended its two-month close inspection of Neptune, the solar system's fourth-largest planet. The one-ton space probe was 34.7 million miles past Neptune, traveling at 37,337 mph. It was 2.83 billion miles from Earth and had a curved course of 66 billion miles on a curved course of 66 billion miles in 1977. Voyager 2 explored Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981 and Uranus in 1998.
Voyager 2's encounter with Neptune formally started Aug. 5. The space probe will continue to look back at the planet until December.
But the formal end of the encounter was marked by the activation yesterday of a new set of computer commands replacing the program that guided the craft and its cameras and instruments through the close examination of Neptune.
Triton's eruptions are composed of nitrogen ice with nitrogen gas, Smith said.
Whether to call them volcanoes or
glant geysers is a semantic issue, Smith said.
"If we're talking about the materials involved, it's closer to a geyser than a volcano," he said. "But if you're talking about the mechanics involved, shooting material miles above the surface, that's closer to a volcano."
Scientists don't know what causes the eruptions on Triton, the coldest known object in the solar system with a surface temperature of 400 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Gorbachev proposes 15-month strike ban
Emergency measures needed, Soviet says
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev urged the legislature yesterday to impose a 15-month ban on strikes that he says are wrecking the Soviet economy and threatening development.
Gorbachev spoke at the end of a stormy two-hour legislative debate on a proposal of emergency economic measures put forward by First Deputy Premier Lev Voronin, the Tass news agency reported.
Gorbachev urged legislators to discuss the charge last night and付
the charge on it. He told
He referred to the possible ban on strikes as a "necessary measure . . . which are called for to protect democratization from anarchy and irresponsible management."
Plans for future economic development are threatened because of the
Colombian cartels may be cooperating
Voronin told the legislature that the ailing Soviet economy had lost $6.15 billion in July and August alone because of strikes; and that supplies of fuel were low enough that the country might be unable to supply enough heat to last Soviet citizens through winter.
Tass said.
A package of proposals for the next 15 months includes "a prohibition of conducting strikes during this period in all branches of the economy."
After legislators expressed contradictory viewpoints during a debate, Gorbachev proposed that they return today to vote on it, Tass said.
The strikes threaten plans for future economic development, Gorbachev says.
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Rival Colombian drug cartels may be joining forces to keep smuggling and distribution lines open during their government's crackdown, a federal agent investigating a record cocaine seizure said yesterday.
Drug agents were surprised to find cocaine from both the Medellin and Cart caltels in a Los Angeles warehouse that housed 20 tons of cocaine, said John Zienter, the Drug Enforcement Administration's special agent
The package of government proposals also calls for imposing a "special form of administration" on railroads in Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the ministries of railroads, defense and interior responsible for protecting the railroads and their workers.
In the Los Angeles raid, authorities acting on a tip knocked apart a padlock on Adriana's Pottery Warehouse in suburban Sylmar, 25 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and found 40,000 pounds of cocaine, worth $20 billion on the street. Police also found $10 million in cash.
The seizure also signaled the existence of a major drug route in which the drugs are shipped from Colombia to Mexico, taken across the border through El Paso, Texas, and shipped, probably by truck, to Los Angeles for U.S. distribution.
for Los Angeles
On Friday, officials raised six warehouses in El Paso and three homes in Juarez, Mexico. Authorities said the warehouses were used as staging sites before the cocaine was transported to Los Angeles.
DEA spokesman Cornelius Dougherty said he did not think that it was unusual for the cartels to work together.
Seven men were arrested Thursday and Friday in Los Angeles and Las Vegas in connection with the 20ton seizure Thursday.
One of the men arrested in Las
seizure, topping the previous record of 12 tons seized in Colombia.
Armenian activists say Azerbaijani railroad workers have cut off during the last two months the trains upon which Armenia depends for 80 percent of the goods brought in from other parts of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev said that when the Supreme Soviet opened its fall session Sept. 25, decisive steps would have to be taken if rails to Armenia were not unblocked.
"These are the major drug dealers, not just the runners," said Los Angeles County District Attorney Ira Reynolds. "They large as they get outside Colombia."
Food stores have been emptied of many basic goods and there is no fuel even for vehicles such as ambulances.
It was the world's largest drug
Vegas, Carlos Tapia Ponce, was described by authorities as a former customs inspector for the Mexican government who became a major drug-smuggling plaver.
World Briefs
'LAST TEMPTATION': A Topeka cable firm plans to broadcast the controversial film "The Last Temptation of Christ" as scheduled Monday night on the channel Cinema.
Rick Comfort, system manager of TCI Cablevision in Topeka, said he understood that other cable manufacturers was also would broadcast the film.
"We don't have any plans to interfere with Cinemax's normal programming." Comfort said.
A cable company in Oklahoma City, Okla., Multimedia Cablevision, decided to pre-empt the film about the life of Jesus Christ. A media dia seeking to force it to telecast the film.
time, said Jack McEvoy, cable executive.
Hays Cable Television also will broadcast the film at its scheduled
PANAMA FREED PROTESTERS:
Panamanian opposition leader Ricardo Arias Calderon and eight companies were freed after being detained by police for 20 hours and questioned about their efforts to curtail government funds, the Defense Forces announced yesterday.
However, Attorney General Carlos Villalaz said by telephone that all nine still faced charges of "crimes against the state, crimes against administration of justice, crimes against the national economy."
Arias, a former vice presidential candidate, was arrested Sunday while promoting the opposition campaign against the government controlled by Gen. Manuel Antonio
Noriega. He was speaking in Veragua province, 180 miles west of the capital.
A statement by former presidential candidate Gullermo Endara said the opposition "reiterates its promise to keep fighting for the establishment of a democratic system of government and full participation in the peaceful means we have been following, despite the escalation of violations and attacks from the dictatorial regime."
Endara, who is in the 13th day of a hunger strike, and Arias are urging supporters to increase pressure on the government by delaying tax and utility bill payments and by boycotting the state-controlled lottery and gambling casinos.
ended, and members of the largest union at the Boeing Co. were expected to vote on a proposed three-year contract today, a company spokesman said.
Paul Binder of Boeing declined to provide any details other than the length of the proposed pact and confirmation that negotiations ended yesterday. He wouldn't say he'd been aware those would recommend acceptance.
BOEING TALKS END: Talks have
Leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, representing 57,000 Boeing workers in Wichita, Portland, Idaho and Seattle did not immediately comment to telephone calls for comment.
The outcome is likely to be decided by the roughly 43,000 Seattle-area members of Machinists District Lodge 751 today.
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