A Look at Man's Planet

When the sun rose over Moscow last June 28, Russian astronomers observed a solar flare--a great jet of intensely hot gas spurting out of the sun. They flashed the news to the World Warning Agency near Washington, D.C., and a volley of messages alerted scientists all over the world, including those parts that were still in darkness. The effects of the flare, a violent magnetic storm and a radio blackout, were observed from the South Pole to the Arctic and all around the equator.

With this example of cooperation began the International Geophysical Year (July 1, 1957--Dec. 31, 1958), a joint effort by all the world's scientists to benefit all the world. Last week in Science, U.S. IGY Director Hugh Odishaw made an interim report on U.S. participation in the 67-country effort to study man's planet. Some of the high spots:

P:Everything on earth lives by grace of the sun, so better knowledge of the sun is vitally important. Solar astronomers at 126 stations around the turning earth have been watching the sun 24 hours a day. To catch its important ultraviolet and X rays, which do not penetrate to the surface, balloons soar high in the air and rockets climb to the top of the atmosphere on a regular schedule. Special instruments watch the sun's glowing outer corona, which may extend as a tenuous gas all the way to the earth.

P:IGY scientists are giving the top of the atmosphere a going-over from a dozen different angles. Cameras photograph the aurora (caused by particles from the sun), and other sensitive instruments measure the faint glow of the night sky. Radio experts keep track of the yearly, daily, hourly and minute-by-minute changes in the layers of electrified air that are so important to long-distance communication.

P:Weathermen are getting the first really worldwide picture of the atmosphere's circulation. U.S. Weather Bureau scientists drifting on the Arctic ice keep track of winds and pressure changes that will affect the weather of Keokuk and Odessa. Their colleagues at the South Pole do the same for the Antarctic. Already their reports have improved weather forecasting for the Southern Hemisphere.

P:Man's planet is still in the grip of an Ice Age, with icecaps at both polar regions, and the IGY wants to know whether it is coming or going. In Greenland, scientists have bored 1,438 ft. into the ice. In Antarctica they are doing the same, and measuring the great icecap by seismic waves. Other scientists are observing the advance or retreat of smaller glaciers in Temperate Zone mountains. Their reports may tell what changes of climate lie in the earth's future.

P:The oceans make a great machine that distributes warmth and cold to many parts of the earth. By new, ingenious methods, IGY scientists are studying ocean currents, including those far below the surface. One of them flows under the Gulf Stream in the opposite direction. Even deeper, slower currents flow away from the Poles, carrying icy water along the ocean bottoms toward the equator. This water is rich in nutrient salts, so whenever it comes to the surface, as it does off Newfoundland and Peru, the sea boils with life.

P:The earth is a great turning bail of stone and metal, some of it solid, some of it plastic, and most of it largely unknown. Working with batteries of delicate instruments, IGY scientists are recording its every pulse and tremor. They have already found new earthquake waves that penetrate deep into the earth and come back to the surface laden with information about the mysterious, hot, high-pressure stuff that they have passed through. Other instruments measure variations in the earth's gravitation. Some of them are sensitive enough to detect the slight tidal heave of the solid crust of the earth as the moon revolves around it. A specially tricky new instrument can measure gravitation from the rolling deck of a ship in midocean. . .

Director Odishaw points out that most of the achievements of the IGY scientists will not be known until the carloads of data that they have collected are passed around and digested. This job is already being done by three World Data Centers (the U.S., Western Europe and the Pacific, and the U.S.S.R.). Each has subsidiary centers that receive special kinds of information. As the raw data arrive, they will be indexed and carefully stored. Complete copies will be sent to each of the other World Centers. This is an enormous job. Not until 1960 will the scientists of all the world know how man's planet behaved during the International Geophysical Year.

planet behaved during the International Geophysical Year.

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