EARTHQUAKES: THE SOLAR CONNECTION

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Approved For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000100120013-0
EARTHQUAKES:
HE SOLAR
CONNECTION
BY PATRICK I-IUYGIIE
A maverick scientist is shaking up quake predictors by
suggesting that solar flares trigger seismic activity.
Editor's note: Much to the consternation of her colleagues, a California scientist believes the sun may trigger such diverse
calamities as earthquakes, human illness and arson. Officials charged with earthquake prediction have encouraged her even as
scientists scoff. Is this researcher a pioneer in the tradition of Galileo or is she just another overeager soul who has misinterpreted
her data to fit her pet theory? Here is her story. After you have read it, decide whether you believe all, parts or none of it.
en% eologists understand the action
of plate tectonics perhaps bet-
ter than any other aspect of the
earthquake-generating process.
The one great mystery that re-
mains is knowing precisely when one tec-
tonic plate will break free of another and
I he Earth's crust- to crumbling. The
key to solving that mystery lies in isolat-
ing he final nudge that upsets the balance
of frictional forces locking the edges of
the plates together.
Biologist Marsha Adams, 38, thinks
she may have found that key 93 million
iniles away from the Earth in the hot, tur-
bulent atmosphere of the sun. Moreover,
Adams, who is at SRI International, a
nonprofit California think tank, has data
she says indicate that certain people can
somehow sense the forces thalt trigger
earl hquakes befOre they occur.
"I didn't start out as a sun freak," says
Adams candidly. "But I've conic to real-
ize that almost all variations that occur in
biological and physical processes may be
the result of fluctuations in solar activity.
have to think very hard to conic up with
one that isn't. I suspect that geophysical
Biologist Marsha Adams, seen standing on
die San Andreas Fault, links solar flares
(top) to health problems as well as quakes.
processes?including volcanoes and
weather fronts?are related to solar activ-
ity in some quite comprehensible way."
Adams's journey to solar consciousness
began a decade ago in a basement labora-
tory of the Stanford Medical School,
where the young biologist was conducting
a study of cardiac stimulants on embryo
chick hearts.
Once the study was completed, Adams
prepared to present her results to the
American Heart Association, but just a
few weeks before she was to do so, her
results reversed themselves. Instead of
stimulation, the embryo chick hearts be-
gan exhibiting depression. Assuming the
experimental setup was at fault, Adams
dismantled the entire system and changed
the platinum electrodes, the stock solu-
tions and the air tanks. No matter what
she did, she couldn't replicate her results.
Soon after, though, for no apparent
reason, the experiment began to work
again. Although they watched several of
these reversals, neither she nor her super-
visor could explain what was happening.
Having taken into account humidity,
temperature and all the other factors that
biologists usually control in their experi-
ments, Adams was left with only one con-
clusion: "The chick embryo results were a
clue that something in the environment
was profoundly influencing biological
Opraing photograph by Roger Rcssineyer; solar- lore photograph courtesy 0INASA
processes, but at the time I didn't know
where to look for the something."
Adams then began to accumulate other
instances of biological variability. In
11,000 cases of measured surgical bleed-
ing, for example, she noticed that the
measurements of blood loss varied. She
screened these cases against a variety of
factors in the geophysical environment:
cosmic radiation, several measures of geo-
magnetic and solar activity and a number
of standard weather variables such as
barometric pressure, temperature and rel-
ative humidity. She found that the bleed-
ing anomalies occurred following periods
of increased solar activity and preceding
large-magnitude earthquakes.
The clinical staff at the Women's Com-
munity Clinic in San Jose, where Adams
was then research director, wasn't sur-
prised, she says. "They said they could
have told me that because everything goes
haywire around there a few days before
an earthquake. People in the recovery
room showed an increase in emotional
disturbances and there was an increase in
the number of people vomiting and react-
ing to anesthetics. They didn't have to
look at the data to tel when an earth-
quake was corning. When I challenged
them to predict the next earthquake, they
did, and the bleeding data showed the ex-
pected anomalies."
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THE SOL AR
Aware of the fact that certain animals
seem to act strangely just prior to earth-
quakes, Adams formalized a study that
used human subjects to forecast them.
She had moved to her present position at
SRI International, and her only contact
with most of the 25 people who are now
participating in the study has been over
the telephone. She has taken great pains,
in the interest of scientific objectivity, for
them not to know one another. "Most of
them contacted me because they had
themselves recognized that their flu-like
symptoms seemed to precede earth-
quakes," says Adams. "Many of those
who called would tell me the same story.
One said: 'You are my last hope before
seeing a psychiatrist.' Another said: 'I feel
really weird about this, but you've heard
about
those
Chinese
studies with
animals re-
sponding to
earthquakes,
haven't.you? Well,
I think maybe that
happens with people,
too.' They would then
go on to describe the
symptoms they felt before
an earthquake, none of
which their physicians could
ie to specific illnesses."
Twice each day, the 25 "re-
sponsives" who reliably exhibit
physiological sensations prior to a
quake fill out a chart, noting the pres-
ence or absence of such symptoms as fa-
tigue, vertigo, chills, headaches, nausea, a
ringing in the ears or a flushed sensation.
The form also provides spaces for depres-
sion and fights with a spouse or work-
mates.
Once the symptoms reach a peak of in-
tensity, the responsives call in on
Adams's hot line and give name, date,
time of day, the symptom and its
strength. This has allowed her to establish
a track record for each person that tells
her how accurate he or she is with regard
to large- or small-magnitude quakes, to
local versus distant quakes and to the tim-
ing of the event. One person, she reports,
has only called in four times, but lie has
been 100 percent on the mark for earth-
quakes over magnitude 7 on the Richter
scale (8.5 is "devastating"). As a team,
the responsives have been accurate be-
tween 70 and 80 percent of the time,
though Adams has made no attempt to
forecast all of the more than 36 earth-
quakes of a magnitude 6.5 or greater that
occur around the world each year. The
forecasts she has made are recorded on a
Burroughs computer at SRI that time-
stamps each entry.
"I sit up and pay attention when they
call," says Adams. "It's awesome to
watch the system work, especially when
twelve of the twenty-five people who
haven't contacted you for weeks call
within a twenty-four-hour period."
She believes that whatever force is trig-
gering these human somatic sensations is
probably also responsible for triggering
earthquakes and for the well-documented
strange behavior of animals preceding
those upheavals. Her data suggest that
the agent responsible for this and other
assorted mischief' is an increase in solar
activity.
February of this year. "She's been right
on target," says Casper. "When Adams
forecasts, the arsonist-. hits within 72
hours. She's got it down."
Solar flares, which Adams thinks are
the crucial factor in this catalog of disas-
ters, are the most spectacular and power-
ful of all forms of solar activity. These
mammoth tongue-shaped protuberances
display temperatures in excess of 20 mil-
lion degrees Kelvin and release the energy
equivalent of 10 to 100 billion 1-megaton
H-bombs, enough power to supply the
United States for thousands of years.
Flares usually appear in step with the
sun-spot cycle, which reaches a maxi-
mum every 11 years. At times of solar
maximum, when the greatest number of
spots appear on the sun, as many as two
or three small flares may ap-
pear every hour, and one
enormous flare may ap-
pear each month. But at
times of solar mini-
mum, weeks may
pass without any
significant flares.
Erupting
flares unleash
a tidal wave
--
Patrick ilayghe, who writes for the New York
Times and science magazines worldwide, met
with biologist Marsha Adams in San Francisco.
An erupting solar flare sends shock waves rippling thmugh the solar wind and pumps
streams of high-energy particles (two horizontal lines) outward. These collide wit! the
Earth's magnetosphere (shaded area), causing magnetic storms that may affect health.
The list of factors Adams claims may
be influenced by increases in solar activity
is a long one and, unbelievable as it may
sound, includes not only earthquakes and
periodic human illness but also freak
weather conditions, arson, riots, political
instability and crime waves. In fact, Ad-
ams points out, the Falkland Islands were
invaded soon after an increase in solar ac-
tivity. Railroad derailments and accidents
involving airplanes, buses and ships ap-
pear on the list as well. All these events
tend to occur in specific time slots within
about a week of increases in solar activity.
Humans normally begin to react within
the first few days alter a flare, and the
earthquakes in about four days.
Adams has already provided several
fire forecasts for Andrew Casper, chief of
the San Francisco fire department, who
has been on the track of an arsonist re-
spon?ible for more than 30 fires since
of radiation, electrical and magnetic fields
and high-energy particles into space, part
of which enhance what is known as the
solar wind. When this solar debris smacks
into the Earth's magnetic field, or magne-
tosphere, a wide variety of terrestrial ef-
fects occur: aurora borealis, geomagnetic
storms, electrical surges in power lines
and even in the ground itself. During one
such outburst in 1859, telegraph opera-
tors found that they could transmit and
receive messages without batteries.
"What has not been appreciated,"
notes Adams, "is just how much biologi-
cal responsiveness there is to solar activi-
ty. Unfortunately, studies on solar-terres-
trial interactions do not show a
one-to-one correspondence. So one won-
ders if there is not some other factor that
might actually be the mechanism that
triggers this biological responsiveness.
And there is another factor that coincides
74 Seienc4431306Veteir Fur Release 2000108410,,:r.0 1A-RDP,9641(g92R01101101 no a3zo, 0,.r
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with solar activity and that is ELF."
ELF is extremely low frequency elec-
tromagnetic radiation (3 to 30 hertz), in
other words, very long radio waves. ELF
is produced naturally in two ways. The
first is through solar activity. When the
main bulk of particles shot from the sun
during a solar flare finally hits the Earth's
magnetic field, it rattles the magneto-
sphere the way a hungry chimp might
snakc a bread box. This flapping of the
magnetosphere generates ELF. ELF is
also produced indirectly through a sec-
ond channel of propagation?weather
fronts.
THE ELF FACTOR
Adams is currently testing the hypoth-
esis that ELF might be the geophysical
variable responsible for triggering all
kinds of biological and seismic processes.
Unfortunately, relatively little work has
been done on wavelengths Mow 100
hertz. But biological processes are known
to respond to several frequencies within
this range. A somewhat casual German
study of 53,000 subjects, for example,
seemed to show that people take longer to
respond to normal stimuli when they are
in the vicinity of ELF waves. Biologists
studying ELF have conic up with a list of
symptoms remarkably similar to those
Adams's responsives report.
It is also known that the frequency of
alpha brain waves (8 hertz) has a geologi-
cal parallel in what is called the Schu-
mann Resonance, the frequency at which
the length of a radio wave equals the cir-
cumference of the Earth. This piece of in-
formation set Adams wondering whether
ELF might not also help directly trigger
earthquakes. Although she doesn't claim
to know just how ELF provides the final
nudge that brings on the catastrophe, she
does speculate on two possible mecha-
nisms: piezoelectricity and magnetostric-
nom
Piezoelectricity is, a process by which
electromagnetic energy is converted to
mechanical energy or vice versa, It occurs
most notably in crystals, and it is the basis
for the quartz watch. The quartz picks up
the electromagnetic signal and converts it
to a mechanical vibration that is then am-
plified. Perhaps the Earth's crust begins
to vibrate through such an effect, says
Adams, or through magnetostriction,
process by which certain magnetic mate-
rials change shape when they are subject-
ed to a magnetic field. When subjected to
an oscillating field, such as ELF, a me-
chanical motion, or vibration, is pro-
duced. Might such a mechanical vibra-
tion, set off by ELF at a frequency that
resonates with a fault location that has
accumulated the most strain, be sufficient:
to trigger an earthquake? Only further re-
search will tell.
Adams thinks that responsives act as
biological transducers and are quicker at
absorbing and integrating information
than any current scientific instrument.
Eventually, however, she expects to be
able to separate the human variable from
the forecasts. Within a year or two, de-
pending on the availability of funds for
proper equipment that will help her cre-
ate an accurate model, she hopes to make
daily forecasts of earthquake probabili-
ties, like a daily weather forecast, using
direct measurements of ELF and/or solar
activity to supplement the human data.
Certainly the most eye-opening aspect
of Adams's current forecasting system is
the finding that responsives need not be in
the vicinity of an earthquake in order to
forecast it. Low-frequency radio waves
travel around the world many times with
minimum attenuation because the cavity
between the Earth and the ionosphere
acts as a vast natural resonator for elec-
tromagnetic energies of these wave-
lengths. This effect allows responsives in
one locale to predict quakes anywhere in
the world.
"I strongly suspect," says Adams,
"that the information that would allow us
to determine location can be found in the
symptoms themselves. What seems to be
happening is that even a person who has
the same symptom over and over may
have additio:nal symptom that appear to
be location dependent. For instance, I've
noticed that the flushed sensation and
chills seem to be prevalent for earth-
quakes that are to occur within a two-
hundred-mile radius of San Francisco
Bay. The tinting of the calls may also pro-
vide location clues. Looking at track re-
cords, I've noticed that for some individ-
uals, if the quake doesn't occur within a
day of their call, the probability of the dis-
turbance being local decreases."
The theory's potential applications
probably played a large part in capturing
the public's attention when news of her
work leaked to the press last September.
California's Governor Jerry Brown was
intrigued enough to call her, and subse-
quently Adams was invited to describe
her work before a hearing on earthquake
prediction and preparedness held by the
state's Assembly Committee on Govern-
mental Operations. The committee gave
her a courteous reception and wished to
Continued on page 103
A
ING RAYS
A painful sunburn or skin cancer
are only the most obvious effects of
sunlight on human health. The sun
may also have the power to alter your
moods, your immune system and per-
haps even your fertility.
Evidence suggests that secretions of
melatonin?a -hormone linked to re-
productive function in some ani-
mals--are regulated, in part, by daily
cycles of light and dark-. MIT endocri-
nologist Richard Wurtman and his co-
workers have found that humans se-
crete more melatonin between 11 tam.
and 7 A.M. Further, Alfred Lewy, a re-
search psychiatrist: at the Oregon
Health Sciences University, and his
colleagues have recently shown that
bright artificial light and sunlight turn
off this melatonin secretion. These re-
sponses are thought to be mediated by
visible light (part of the sun's spec-
trum), which acts on photoreceptors
in the eye. Lewy has found that some
blind people have different melatonin-
secretion rhythms than people with
normal sight.
Although in sonic animals melato-
nin inhibits ovulation and causes adult
gonads to regress under certain condi-
tions, evidence for a link between light
and fertility in humans has so far been
indirect. One four-year study reported
that most women in north Finland
conceived during the summers, when
there are about 20 hours of sunlight a
day. And an Italian study showed that
in spring teenage girls had a 10 times
greater secretion of a hormone that af-
fects the ovaries than they did in au-
tumn?presumably in response to the
influence of increasing versus decreas-
ing daylight.
Some people who suffer from manic
depression, a mood disorder, are ab-
normally sensitive to light; Lewy and
his co-workers discovered that some
sufferers stop secreting melatonin at a
lower-than-average light intensity. But
whether the hormone directly affects
mood or is just a marker for other bio-
chemical changes going on inside the
body is not known.
Other evidence indicates that the
sun's ultraviolet light impairs the hu-
man immune system by causing ab-
normalities, at least temporarily, in
white blood cells. Work with animal
cells at Harvard Medical School has
demonstrated that exposure to ultravi-
olet rays prevents the proper function-
ing of cells involved in fighting infec-
tion and, at the same time, stimulates
suppressor cells, which normally turn
off the immune system.
?Madeline Chinniei
75
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Continued from page 75
be api?.,,u of further progress in her re-
search.
The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS)
Office of Earthquake Studies in Menlo
Park., California, also gave her an oppor-
tunity to present her work, but the major-
ity of its scientists apparently felt that the
evidence she presented was not persuasive
enough to warrant funding by the USGS.
C. Barry Raleigh, a geophysicist with the
USGS at the time, however, indicates that
timy encouraged her to pursue her work.
)ealing with a subject of such. scope in-
volves risks, and Adams's theory has in-
vited its share of criticism, much of it
front geologists. "I never saw pulled to-
gether the kind of critical evidence re-
quired to make a hypothesis like that be
I even marginally acceptable," says Ra-
leigh, currently director of the Lamont-
Doherty Geological Observatory, who
has been outspoken in Ins critictsm of her
work. "The idea is interesting, Out it was
not backed up to my satisfaction by an
adequate body of objective data that
could allow you to decide if there was
anything to it or not. Probably the weak-
est link in her work is that there is no rea-
sonable physical model that might ex-
plain the phenomenon. But there is
obviously sonietliing in the idea that has
her convinced."
PREMATURE EXPOSURE
Adams regrets the premature publicity
she has received. It has forced her to pre-
sent her work through the media, without
first having the results presented in a sci-
entific journal and, even more important,
without first having completed a rigorous
analysis of all her data.
Lven in its formative stage, however,
dams is clearly excited by the theory.
-there is a variable that we are not aware
of and yet is present and influencing all
our lives." she says. "I think everyone
may be sensitive to it to some degree. It's
Just that people are not aware of what to
look for. It's a matter of exposure, recog-
nition and awareness, Unfortunately, I
think that right now we are culturally bi-
ased against this particular variable."
While many of Adams's colleagues re-
main skeptical about her work, her notion
that the sun has t profound effect on our
In, es would certainly have Come as no sur-
prise to Uncle Joe Cannon, the venerable
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representa-
tives between 1903 and 1911. During a.
debate on appropriations for solar re-
search, it was Uncle Joe who argued:
"Everything hangs upon the sun, sir, and
it ought to be investigated."
Do you want to know more about how the
sun aikets us? See next month's Science
Digest story about the exciting research on
the solar wind's role in the aurora borealis.
KI1IOLKA-Rop96-oo7
Continued from page 88
effect?the character of the original gene
pool. If the first ancestors did not flave a
particular genetic disease, then it is un-
likely to appear in their descendants.
"These communities are microcosms,
living laboratories of what can happen
from generations of inbreeding," says Dr.
Martin Greenberg, head of pediatrics at a
hospital near the Ridge. Although no one
has done any clinical studies on the
Ridge, such as those that have been done
on the Amish (see page 87), the families
there reveal and talk about problems that
Greenberg says may be hereditary.
"'Front what I have seen and what I am
aware of, there arc some abnormalities
that seem to be related to disorders of the
bone, connective tissues and joints. Also
apparent in some of the families is an in-
creased incidence or neurological prob-
lems, ranging crom strokes and seizures to
cases of mental retardation."
FEAR OF INBREEDING
The severity of the punishments often
given to those who have violated taboos
against incest would seem to reflect a very
profound fear of inbreeding. It is hardly
surprising that the sporadic and often
sudden appearance of physical or mental
illness among children of consanguineous
marriages is seiied on as the ultimate jus-
tification for such taboos.
The problematic history of incest and
the simultaneous fragility and strength of
human evolution are only a few of the di-
lemmas one faces in trying to understand
the meaning communities like the
Ridge. How can you separate the social
and medical effects of inbreeding? In
judging the medical effects of inbreeding,
how certain can we be about the nature of
the original gene pool?
How can we decide which society is
more advanced: the community that tol-
erates and cares for the sick and the old in
the normal run of family life or the one
that puts them away in institutions?
Greenberg had listened for years to
tales of violence and mental it
on the Ridge. Finally, he went up to see
for himself. "What is striking about these
people," Inc says, -is not so much their
genetic problems. Rather, it's the whole
area of sochil interaction, their tolerance
and caring, the interdependence, the ac-
ceptance, the charity, the openness of
their loves and their hates."
In spite of its anarchies and contradic-
tions, occasional ugh ness and the laby-
rinth of legends, there are lessons to be
learned on the Ridge. "Nature," wrote
William Harvey in 1657, justifying his in-
terest in rare diseases, "is nowhere accus-
tomed more openly to display her secret
mysteries than in cases where she shows
traces of her workings apart from the
beaten path."
240?(13Argoi.AcOND
IN ETERNITY
The Ancients Called It
COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
Must man die to release his inner con.
scionsness? Can we experience momentary
flights of the soul?that is, become one
with the universe and receive an influx of
great understanding?
The shackles of the body---its earthly
limitations?can be thrown off and man's
mind can he attuned to the Infinite Wisdom
for a flash of it second. During this brief
interval intuitive knowledge, great inspira-
tion ;old a new vision of our life's on
are had. Some call, this great experience a
psychic phenomenon. But the ancients knew
it and taught it as Cosmic Consciousness--
the merging of man's mind with the Uni-
versal Intelligence,
Let This Free Book Explain
This is not a religious doctrine, but the
application of simple, natural laws which
give man an insight into the great Cosmic
plan. They make possible a source of great
joy, strength and a regeneration of man's
personal powers. Write to the Rosicrucians,
an age-old hrotherhcatd of understanding,
for a free copy of die book, "The Mastery
of Life." It will tell you how, in the pri-
vacy of your own home, you may indulge
in these mysteries of life known to the
ancients. Address: Scribe DYE
971e `.1((_)sicrticians
SAN JOSE (AMORC) CALIF., 95191 LISA
SEND THIS COUPON
Please Include Your Zip Code
?
Scribe DYE
The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC)
San Jose, California 95191 U.S.A.
Please send me the /tee book, The Mastery
of Life, which explains how I may learn to
use my faculties and powers of mind.
Address
City
State Zip COde---
L
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NATURE'S HIDDEN POWER LINE
Everyone l? nows about the kind of elec-
tric current provided by utility compa-
nies. Less familiar are the currents maim-
Iktmed by nature's own powerhouse.
Charged particles Irons the sum set off os-
cillations in the Earth's magnetic field at
I the edges of the atmosphere. 1 hese pukes
in turn induce electric currents on the
Earth.
John R. Booker, a geophysicist at the ?
University of Washington, was studying
the structure of the w estern seacoast
when he came across an immense cut rent,
one far too strong to be caused solely by
local phenomena. In early 1980, he and
co-worker Gerard I leasel traced the cur-
rent along a line that runs roughly south-
east from Tacoma, Washington, to the
Columbia River.
An electric current will usually flow
more easily through water than through
land, but rock that holds water in its
pores tends to be highly conductive.
Booker discovered that his current flows
along a thin wedge of porous sedimentary
rock squeezed between older, denser con-
tinental crust to the cast and ocean crust
being pushed in from the west.
Booker believes the current is induced
ST II Al I (If
(;FORGIA
ANCOI'VER
in the Pacific and travels down between
Vancouver Island and the Canadian
mu inland. Ihea, prevented by a milder
Inc, airing current front following the path
of least resistance back to the ocean, it
continues south down Puget Sound,
wh,re it Peaks into the continental mass.
The current's path coincides with a seis-
mic fault, and scientists hope that map-
ping it will provide in about the
region's geological st ru?Iti re that can help
them evaluateetrthquake hazards.
Although the current flows along at a
powerful rate, local residents won't be
able to plug their toasters into their back-
yards. The rock vein's high conductivity,
says Booker, makes it impossible for the
energy to be concentrated and tapped. et
?
A CAMEL CAN SURVIVE in the
desert not because its hump stores
water, but beeanie It stores fat, As
the fat is hi-alert do's a, hydrogen is
given off. This mingles with oxygen
inhaled by the animal and cre-
ates- -you guessedit?water.
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4 noturally occurring electric current flows through a wedge of pomus rock in the
Pacific Northwest, coincident with a seismic fault. By mapping the current's path,
eseat ? inlia?rgr clues to the reloviatteritvattyrtfia.
- .Refease z Demi
' pee Digest---Oetober 1982
WORLD SPACE
CAPITAL RISES
IN BALTIMORE
Beginning in early 1985, the world's
capital of astronomy will not be a wind-
swept mountain in California, a volcano
in Hawaii or even a huge telescope in the
Soviet Union. It will be a five-story build-
`rig in downtown Baltimore.
The Space Telescope Science Institute.
(STSI), now being built at Johns Hopkins
University, will be the final destination
for data transmitted from the Space Tele-
scope, an orbiting observatory that proj-
ect scientists say will see objects 50 times
fainter and 7 times farther away than can
be detected by the largest Earth-based
telescopes.
Once the Space Telescope is placed into
orbit by the space shuttle and begins its
observations, a crew about 80 strong will
operate the STSI around the clock. As
one scientist's experiment ends, another's
will begin, and by the end of one year it is
estimated, that the facility will have host-
ed more than 150 visiting astronomers
from around the world.
Data and pictures from the Space 'Tele-
scope will first be transmitted to NASA's
Goddard Space Might Center in Green-
belt, Maryland, where the craft's ground
systems are located, and then relayed to
the STSI's on-line observation area. As
the data become public, after about a
year, they will also be sent to a European
Space Agency facility now under con-
struction in Munich.
"Calculations suggest that. the Space
Telescope will be able to see any Jupiter.
size planets orbiting Sunrlike stars a.s far
away as ten light-years?possibly twenty
to thirty," says project scientist C. R.
O'Dell. There are 11 stars within ten
light-years of the Sun, 76 more within a
radius of twenty light-years.
If all goes according to blueprints, as-
tronomers at the STSI will carry out the
renaissance of optical astronomy in pleas-
ant surroundings. "The Institute is being
built into the side of a hill in a very wood-
ed section. It's a nice rural setting within
a city," says chief facility manager H.
James Lyall, The building will include a
library, data archives, a 200-seat lecture
hall, a skylit lobby, a terrace cafeteria and
office space for. support staff and visiting
scientists,
The STSI is being built under the aegis
of AURA (Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy), a NASA-fund-
ed consortium that proposed the institute,
t already operates three ground-based
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