scienceStechnology
Thursday, January 20, 2000
THE BATTALION
^Only lunar eclipse of year casts
^shadow upon the Americas tonight
Moon shadow
A total eclipse of the moon, the first since September 1997, will begin
late Thursday night. Here’s a look at the schedule the moon will keep
as it slips through the Earth’s shadow, a passage that will be fully visible
above North and South America, depending on the weather.
Faster forecasts ahead
New computer to make weather easier
Umbra —
Earth's dark
inner shadow.
Penumbra
The soft outer fringe of
the Earth’s shadow.
* Moon • Moon -j: ...ecfipse en ®rs'
leaves , ® aves «*pse’~- beglns umbra f^mbra
penumbra urt * ra tr:05 p.m. 10:01p.m. 9:03 p.m.
2:24 a.m. 1:25 a m - 12:22 a m - -
''*,Note: All ti/rtes are Eastern Standard Time
The view from Earth
Though people in North and South America will enjoy views of the full
eclipse, its phases will be visible in other parts of the world. Here are
the vantage points, labelled by the phases above.
eclipse* * * *
ends
12:22 a.m.
Cl Total'** 8 M°on / •M 000
.. -ecfipse enters enters
begins umbra P a nu m bra
11:05 p.m. WOl p.m. 9:03 P-™'
Total eclipse visible
e a
risi
Eclipse at
moon set
Eclipse at
moon rise _
©
©©
WASHINGTON (AP) — True, a
human weather forecaster using a
hand-held calculator could work out
the same predictions as the National
Weather Service’s costly new com
puter. It’s just that what the IBM does
in one second would take the human
500 years.
That is why Weather Service Di
rector John W. Kelly Jr. expects great
things from the agency’s new ma
chine, dedicated Tuesday and one of
the two fastest weather computers in
the world.
Five times faster than the Cray C-
90 it replaces, the new 786 processor
IBM SPcan make 690 billion calcu
lations per second. By September it
will be speeded up to 2.5 trillion cal
culations per second.
“This new supercomputer puts us
closer to reaching our goal of be
coming America’s no surprise
weather service,” Kelly said.
“This gives our forecasters more
sophisticated models of the atmos
phere and oceans, which act as blue
prints for upcoming weather pat
terns,” he said.
“On a daily basis, we should see
a 10 percent improvement in pre
dicting temperatures, humidity and
pinpointing when, where and how
much rainfall will occur.”
The new computer’s debut in
cluded a warning that major East
Coast cities face the threat of snow
and severe cold late this w eek.
A low pressure area developing
off the Carolinas is expected to
bring snow from Washington to
New England on Thursda\ night,
followed by brutally cold conditions
on Friday and into Saturday. Louis
W. Uccellini, director of the Na
tional Centers for Environmental
Prediction in Bowie, Md„ where the
new computer is located, said.
"This gives our
forecasters
more sophisti
cated models of
the atmosphere
and oceans."
— John W. Kelly, jr.
Weather Service Director
The computer, leased for $35 mil
lion until 2002. provides the basic
guidance for forecasts issued by the
weather service as well as forecasts
provided in newspapers and broad
cast on radio and television.
Billions of pieces of information on
the weather around the w orld lire fed
into the computer continually, giv ing it
a picture of current conditions.
Flic computer then uses forecast
models, which are complex sets of
mathematical formulas, to calculate
how these conditions will probably
change over the next tew minutes,
hours and days.
The models understand patterns
of w eather movement and how one
type of weather affects areas nearby.
The models are repeatedly updated
with new sets of conditions and then
run again.
The results of the models are then
sent by computer to weather sen ice
offices around the country, to uni
versities, to pri\ ale forecasting com
panies and to foreign weather ser
vices for use in developing local
forecasts.
The faster the computer runs the
more accurate the forecast is likely to
be and the longer period of warning
meteorologists can give. Kelly said.
Currently, national forecasts are
able to predict the dev elopment and
movement of w eather sy stems about
the size of New Jersey two to five
days in advance. Uccellini said.
With the new computer, he said
forecasts will be able to predict sys
tems as small as individual counties
some six to 10 days ahead of time.
The older Cray C-90 computer, in
use since 1994, was destroyed in a
lire last September.
t T
_£D
Vitamin E may iKf all
help your heart o\
(AP) — A large stu*j
doubt on the widely I
that daily vitamin E ptii
ward off heart problems,!
Although the study isi
to settle the question,itl
evidence over 4 1/2;
the pills do any good.
Earlier research
that vitamin E may I
substantially in people i
ready have heart
The study was
Thursday 's New Engla
of Medicine and led by&[
Yusuf of Hamilton
pital in Ontario.
disease:
Shuttle launch
due to tile di
?i HOf
3H SC
T
MAH
001
LOO*
CAPE CANAVERAL Rat
A missing tfvermal tilet
wing of the space
covery could hold upt
nig launch of another;
The tile was misss^
Discovery returned iasb
from a successful
sion to the Hubble
scope. Engineers
tile was installed if
came off just before i
;»<>.-U-ct the Shtl^ — _
M L t
NASA wants to mSef!;.
Endeavour's tiles werei
correctly and has orderai
perwork review, spokesaj
Joel Wells said Tuesday
No eclipse visible
Sources: Sky & Telescope magazine; Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC
AP
Veterinary lab ends animal experimen
North America’s first and only lunar eclipse of the year will occur tonight around
10 p.m. Don Carona, program director for the Texas A&M observatory, said the
eclipse should start at 9 p.m., with the moon being completely shadowed by the
earth around 10 p.m. The moon will be back in full view by 11:30 p.m.
“When the moon first enters into the shadow of the Earth, it begins to appear
to change into a reddish color," he'said. ‘‘This eclipse is great because everyone
in the Americas is going to be able to see it.”
CHAMPAIGN, III. (AP) — Bowing to protests
from students, the University of Illinois has suspend
ed first-year veterinary school lab experiments that can
kill dogs, rabbits and pigs.
The decision to stop such experiments through the
spring semester came after complaints from veterinary
students and members of People for the E thical Treat
ment of Animals.
Twenty-six students, or a quarter of the first-year
veterinary class, signed a petition last fall sa> ing they
would not participate in animal labs during the spring
semester.
The veterinary school has used about I (X) dogs and
pigs annually to teach animal physiology, including a
course in which students inject drugs into dogs to
change their heartbeat or their rate of breathing.
The students have called for non-lethal alternatives
to accommodate students who object, such as video
tapes .md computer programs.
Officials said thev will use the spnnsar
decide w heftier to resume experimentsonr
changes.
Veterinary college Dean fed Valii \tidS
also would stop conducting cxpcranaSMy
!'ll night through animal dealers.
Unties said such dogs may be atoned%.
theft or other objectionable means.
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