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Two small asteroids in unrelated orbits will pass within the moon's distance of Earth on Tues/Wed. Both should be observable with moderate-sized amateur telescopes.

MEDIA RELEASE

Two asteroids, several meters in diameter and in unrelated orbits, will pass within the moon’s distance of Earth on Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 7 & 8.

Both asteroids should be observable near closest approach to Earth with moderate-sized amateur telescopes. Neither of these objects has a chance of hitting Earth. A 10-meter-sized near-Earth asteroid from the undiscovered population of about 50 million would be expected to pass almost daily within a lunar distance, and one might strike Earth’s atmosphere about every 10 years on average.

The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz., discovered both objects on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 5, during a routine monitoring of the skies. The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded that both objects would pass within the distance of the moon about three days after their discovery.

Near-Earth asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet (10 to 20 meters) in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 154,000 miles, or 248,000 kilometers) at 11:51 p.m. HST Tuesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet (6 to 14 meters) in size, will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (about 49,088 miles or 79,000 kilometers) a few hours later at 11:12 a.m. HST Wednesday.

More information about asteroids is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/ You can also follow the latest news about asteroids on Twitter at @asteroidwatch

(Activity updates are written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

No breakouts on the flow field have been reported over the past week, as of this writing (Thursday, Sept. 2). Though repeated deflation–inflation cycles at Kilauea’s summit may have caused small fluctuations in the size of the steam plume at Puhi-o-Kalaikini, the ocean entry remains active.

At Kilauea’s summit, a circulating lava pond deep in the collapse pit within the floor of Halemaumau Crater has also been visible via the Webcam throughout the past week. The lava surface fluctuated slowly in concert with the deflation-inflation cycles.

This slow change in lava level was punctuated on several occasions by abrupt increases in the height of the lava surface. These periods of high lava level were short-lived, lasting up to several hours, and ended with a sudden drop of the lava surface, back to its previous level. Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated, resulting in high concentrations of sulfur dioxide downwind.

One earthquake beneath Hawaii Island was reported felt during the past week.

A magnitude-2.8 earthquake occurred at 8:40 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 26 and was located 14 km (8 miles) west of Kilauea summit at a depth of 11 km (7 miles).

Visit the HVO Web site (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for detailed Kilauea and Mauna Loa activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call (808) 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

(Volcano Watch is a weekly article written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

There’s a new volcanology book available from a Hawaii-based volcanologist, the first in almost 40 years.

“Volcanoes: A Global Perspective” was written by John P. (“Jack”) Lockwood and Richard W. (“Rick”) Hazlett. Jack retired after a long career with HVO and is now an internationally known consulting volcanologist. Rick wrote and illustrated several field guides about Hawaii and has been a long-time geology professor at Pomona College, California.

Their combined efforts result in a well-illustrated, broad treatment of modern volcanology that provides the reader with a good understanding of how volcanoes work.

Of special interest are stories with Hawaii ties, like the origin of the term “pyroduct.” The first person to theorize how lava is able to travel so far from its vent was not a geologist but a Christian missionary – the Rev. Titus Coan – who was very interested in the workings of active volcanoes. Coan was stationed in Hilo between 1835 and his death in 1882, and witnessed every eruption of Mauna Loa during that time.

His first was the January 1843, eruption of Mauna Loa that sent flows racing to the north where it ponded against cinder cones at the base of Mauna Kea in the Saddle between the two great mountains. Having never climbed either mountain or seen an active Mauna Loa lava flow, Coan, with another missionary and a few native porters, decided to make the trip.

After an exhausting journey to the foot of these active flows, the party began a treacherous climb over hot, but hardened, lava flows in an attempt to reach the vent high on Mauna Loa.

On the way, Coan’s party noticed openings (now called skylights) through which they could see a molten lava stream below, flowing at a rate of 20 miles per hour. They found several of these openings on their trek up the lava flow.

Unencumbered by the constraints of a formal geologic education, he concluded that “As these lower branches [of the flow] were pushing slowly along upon level ground, and as the feeding flood had ceased to come down upon the surface from the … vent, but flowed in a subterranean duct or ducts …”

Coan humbly offered a name “pyroduct” for these conduits through which lava flows.

Coan’s observations, however, were not without controversy, as he discovered upon discussed his ideas with the premier American geologist, James Dwight Dana. Dana had been the geologist with the U.S. Exploring Expedition that visited Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes in 1840 and 1841.

As the story is told in “Volcanoes: A Global Perspective,” Dana, who had never observed an active Hawaiian lava flow, openly challenged and dismissed Coan’s ideas that lava flowed through the hardened interior of flows and hypothesized that what Coan had seen were deep volcanic fissures radiating from Mauna Loa’s summit.

Coan’s idea, however, made more sense to other lava flow witnesses, and the reports of subsequent eruptions by fellow missionaries also included descriptions of pyroducts. Even if the term wasn’t used, the idea of internal lava transport had become widely accepted in Hawaii.

For example, when another Mauna Loa lava flow threatened Hilo in the summer of 1881, newspapers reported plans for diverting lava away from the town and the bay. In the Aug. 20, 1881, edition of The Saturday Press, the rationale was given this way for a potential use of explosives:

“For the last two months nearly, has this flow poured down the mountainside, and it seems to make for itself a tunnel or casing, of cold lava, whilst this heated molten rock flows in a sort of tube of its own construction … Now if this great conduct were broken up the lava flow might be taken in hand as it were, rendered a little more tractable.”

Coan’s idea made it possible to think of ways to divert a lava flow, Dana’s ideas did not. Years after Coan’s death, Dana did, finally, accept Coan’s concept. As Jack and Rick say in their new book, “Good field observations usually trump academic theories!”

Flash forward to 2010, Pyro-ductTM is now an electrically and thermally conductive material that is commercially available, and the internal conduits through which lava is transported are commonly called “lava tubes.” But, who knows, maybe the new text will return Coan’s term – “pyroduct” – to modern usage.

MEDIA RELEASE

WASHINGTON — NASA has unveiled NASA App HD, a new mobile application designed for the iPad. The application is available free of charge at the App Store from Apple.

NASA App HD features live streaming video from NASA Television, an interactive map with links to all the agency’s field centers, quick links to feature stories and launch schedules, a scrolling “alerts banner,” and a “NASA Featured” link. The first featured link focuses on women in space.

The app’s landing page features the solar system, where users can learn more about our neighborhood, the universe and NASA missions. The app also enables users to experience and search updated, higher resolution NASA Image of the Day and Astronomy Picture of the Day collections and agency videos on demand.

“Our goal with the first NASA App was to deliver current mission information, images, videos and news updates in the best possible way for the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Jerry Colen, NASA App project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “Now we’ve enhanced and expanded the application to include even more content and really take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen.”

The NASA App is available for free on the App Store for iPad

For more information about the NASA App HD for the iPad, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasaapp

Dear Friends of Astronomy,

You are invited to attend Keck Observatory’s September Astronomy Lecture, “Galaxies and the Reionization of the Universe,” presented by Dr. Alice Shapley on Thursday, Sept. 2.

The program begins at 7 p.m. and will take place in Waimea at the W. M. Keck Observatory headquarters at 65-1120 Mamalahoa Highway. Seating is limited to first-come, first served.

Shapley, a professor of astronomy at the University of California at Los Angeles, will discuss how astronomers’ studies of ancient galaxies illuminates our understanding of the early history of the cosmos.

For more information, call 881-3854 or visit keckobservatory.org

Upcoming Public Events

Keck Astronomy Lecture- Bruce Macintosh, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
7 p.m., Oct. 28
Topic: Photography of Extrasolar Planets

Keck Astronomy Lecture- Josh Eisner, University of Arizona
7 p.m., Nov. 23
Topic: Star and Planet Formation

Keck Astronomy Lectures will take place at the Observatory’s headquarters in Waimea, unless otherwise noted.

(Activity updates are written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

There were several small breakouts just west of the end of Highway 130 last weekend, and a few small breakouts on the Puhi-o-Kalaikini delta at mid-week. All were short-lived and posed no threat to the nearby Kalapana Gardens subdivision.

A series of inflation–deflation cycles, ongoing at Kilauea’s summit for the past several weeks, may result in fluctuations in the size of the ocean entry plume over the coming days and could result in more small breakouts on the coastal flow field.

At Kilauea’s summit, a circulating lava pond deep in the collapse pit within the floor of Halemaumau Crater was visible via the Webcam throughout the past week. The lava surface rose and fell slowly to match the series of deflation–inflation cycles.

This slow change in lava level was punctuated on several occasions by abrupt increases in the height of the lava surface. These periods of high lava level were short-lived, lasting up to several hours, and ended with a sudden drop of the lava surface back to its previous level. Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated, resulting in high concentrations of sulfur dioxide downwind.

Three earthquakes beneath Hawaii Island were reported felt during the past week.

A magnitude-2.5 earthquake occurred at 3:31 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 19, and was located 6 km (4 miles) west of Kilauea summit at a depth of 9 km (6 miles).

A magnitude-3.1 earthquake occurred at 3:01 p.m. Monday, Aug. 23, and was located 15 km (10 miles) west of Pahala at a depth of 8 km (5 miles).

A magnitude-2.7 earthquake occurred at 3:26 p.m. Wednesday, Aug/ 25, and was located 16 km (10 miles) west of Kilauea summit at a depth of 11 km (7 miles).

Visit the HVO Web site (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for detailed Kilauea and Mauna Loa activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call (808) 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

(Volcano Watch is a weekly article written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

Like other volcano observatories, HVO devotes most of its resources to volcano monitoring, using time-tested methods that have been found to deliver data useful for understanding and forecasting volcanic behavior. But the monitoring toolkit is not static; it evolves as new technologies become available and as new monitoring strategies are introduced.

Before a new method is adopted, someone has to imagine it—and imagine that it might be superior to an existing method or provide information that is otherwise unavailable. Many volcano-monitoring tools have been adopted from other disciplines, when a volcanologist recognizes the applicability to volcanology.

Two examples are interferometric synthetic aperture radar (INSAR) and Doppler radar. INSAR can detect subtle changes in the earth’s surface over broad areas. Doppler radar—used to detect and track plumes from explosive eruptions—was adopted from the meteorological community. Doppler radar images are frequently seen on television weather forecasts.

Both INSAR and Doppler radar evolved from radar developed for military applications.

The idea for a new method may spring from a chance observation. For example, pioneering volcanologist Frank Perret, responding to a volcanic crisis at Vesuvius in 1906, wrote: “At the Eremo Hotel, opposite the Royal Observatory, I thought I could hear in the dead of night a low buzzing sound. On opening the window the buzzing ceased, but with my ear to the pillow it again became distinctly audible. With my teeth in contact to the iron bedstead the noise was unquestionably louder, and there was no doubt in my mind that a contact microphone would have shown the sound to be of subterranean origin, definitely premonitory of threatening danger.”

Whatever the source of the idea, it needs to be tested. The outcome of such a test is of course uncertain—otherwise the test wouldn’t be necessary. Many “good ideas” don’t pan out. Frank Perret constructed and tested his contact microphone, but it has not become part of the modern toolkit. On the other hand, seismographs, which measure lower vibrational frequencies, have become the foundation of the volcano-monitoring toolkit.

Observatories can devote only a small fraction of their resources to testing new ideas—just as a prudent stock portfolio manager will allocate only a small fraction of a portfolio to high-risk but potentially high-return stocks.

HVO currently has several speculative stocks in its portfolio. One is the use of multiple continuously recording gravimeters—instruments that accurately measure the pull of gravity. Gravity measurements can detect subtle density changes caused by magma movement beneath the instrument.

Gravimeters are notoriously difficult to operate and, traditionally, each measurement has been made manually. The use of continuously recording instruments is new—and experimental.

The study of lava-tube tremor is also experimental. This study was designed to test the idea that fluid motions in flowing tube-lava would generate vibrations. It was hoped that the amplitude and/or frequency of the vibrations would track the lava flux— that is, the rate at which lava flows through the tube.

If this were true, we could monitor the changes in Kīlauea’s output in real time. Data collected from seismometers placed atop lava tubes show that lava tubes do indeed produce continuous vibrations, or tremor.

And it appears that the tremor amplitude tracks the lava flux over periods of at least a week. Future experiments will collect data over longer time periods.

A third experiment will deploy a number of thermal infrared web cameras. Infrared light penetrates ash and fume better than visible light, so these cameras should be able to provide continuous images of the lava lake within Halemaumau Crater.

The visible-light cameras currently in use can only see through the fume at night. In addition to images, these new cameras also provide quantitative temperatures that can be monitored for unusual changes over time.

All of these experiments—and others not described—are promising. But they will find their way into regular use only after testing demonstrates that the information they provide is sufficiently useful to justify the cost of procurement and maintenance in a challenging environment.

MEDIA RELEASE

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star.

The transit signatures of two distinct planets were seen in the data for the sun-like star designated Kepler-9. The planets were named Kepler-9b and 9c. The discovery incorporates seven months of observations of more than 156,000 stars as part of an ongoing search for Earth-sized planets outside our solar system.

The findings are published in the Aug. 26 issue of the journal Science.

Kepler’s ultra-precise camera measures tiny decreases in the stars’ brightness that occur when a planet transits them. The size of the planet can be derived from these temporary dips.

The distance of the planet from the star can be calculated by measuring the time between successive dips as the planet orbits the star. Small variations in the regularity of these dips can be used to determine the masses of planets and detect other non-transiting planets in the system.

In June, mission scientists submitted findings for peer review that identified more than 700 planet candidates in the first 43 days of Kepler data. The data included five additional candidate systems that appear to exhibit more than one transiting planet.

The Kepler team recently identified a sixth target exhibiting multiple transits and accumulated enough follow-up data to confirm this multi-planet system.

“Kepler’s high quality data and round-the-clock coverage of transiting objects enable a whole host of unique measurements to be made of the parent stars and their planetary systems,” said Doug Hudgins, the Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Scientists refined the estimates of the masses of the planets using observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory. The observations show Kepler-9b is the larger of the two planets, and both have masses similar to but less than Saturn. Kepler-9b lies closest to the star with an orbit of about 19 days, while Kepler-9c has an orbit of about 38 days.

By observing several transits by each planet over the seven months of data, the time between successive transits could be analyzed.

“This discovery is the first clear detection of significant changes in the intervals from one planetary transit to the next, what we call transit timing variations,” said Matthew Holman, a Kepler mission scientist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “This is evidence of the gravitational interaction between the two planets as seen by the Kepler spacecraft.”

In addition to the two confirmed giant planets, Kepler scientists also have identified what appears to be a third, much smaller transit signature in the observations of Kepler-9. That signature is consistent with the transits of a super-Earth-sized planet about 1.5 times the radius of Earth in a scorching, near-sun 1.6 day-orbit.

Additional observations are required to determine whether this signal is indeed a planet or an astronomical phenomenon that mimics the appearance of a transit.

NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler’s ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development.

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data.

— Find out more:
Kepler mission: www.nasa.gov/kepler

(Activity updates are written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

There were two short-lived breakouts close to the end of Highway 130 during the first part of the week. These breakouts posed no threat to the nearby Kalapana Gardens subdivision.

By Thursday, Aug. 19, however, a prolonged deflation at Kilauea’s summit caused nearly all surface flows to stall, and the amount of lava reaching the ocean at Puhi-o-Kalaikini decreased substantially. The ocean entry plume is expected to return to normal size, and surface flow activity may resume once the deflation ends and the volcano re-inflates.

At Kilauea’s summit, a circulating lava pond deep in the collapse pit within the floor of Halemaumau Crater was visible via the Webcam throughout the past week. The lava surface rose and fell slowly to match the series of deflation/inflation cycles recorded at the summit. In addition, the lava surface rose abruptly on several occasions.

These periods of high lava level were short-lived, lasting only up to several hours, and ended with a sudden drop of the lava surface back to its previous level. Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated, resulting in high concentrations of sulfur dioxide downwind.

One earthquake beneath Hawaii Island was reported felt during the last week. A magnitude-3.8 earthquake occurred at 11:52 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 18 and was located 7 km (5 miles) west of Kalapana at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).

Visit the HVO Web site (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for detailed Kilauea and Mauna Loa activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call (808) 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

(Volcano Watch is a weekly article written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

Anyone looking at a map of the Pacific cannot help but be astounded by the feat of the first Polynesian navigators to these isolated islands of Hawaii. In contrast, their homelands in the south Pacific are dotted with tens of thousands of islands.

As the islands of the south Pacific are typically of volcanic origin, the region has the highest density of volcanoes on Earth. Many of the older, extinct volcanoes sank below the surface, while reefs grew upward, forming beautiful coral islands or atolls.

There are, however, still a lot of active volcanoes in the south Pacific, many of them so recent that they have not yet broken the surface of the ocean.

Some of the volcanic chains, such as the Marquesas, and Hawaii, trace the path of the Pacific Plate over a stationary “hot spot” — a place where magma wells up through the crust to erupt on the sea floor, building a volcanic edifice.

Other volcanic chains, such as the Mariana Islands and Vanuatu, are island arcs, associated with subduction zones — boundaries between tectonic plates where one plate, generally the older and denser of the two, thrusts down into the mantle beneath the other plate. Arc volcanoes form on the overriding plate, in this case the Pacific plate, roughly paralleling the plate boundary. This is the classic “ring of fire” volcanism.

Although Kilauea is the Pacific volcano making the news recently by sending lava flows into inhabited areas and producing land-building ocean entries, there are volcanoes in the south Pacific, as well as elsewhere, that rival Kilauea’s “most active volcano” status.

For example, Yasur volcano in Vanuatu has been erupting almost continuously since at least 1774, when Captain Cook recorded seeing ash erupting from Yasur. Eruptions tend to be strombolian, ejecting incandescent material to altitudes of hundreds of meters, though vulcanian explosions of dense, ash-laden gas also occur.

This past summer, ash clouds reached elevations of almost 2,000 m (6,500 feet), affecting flights in neighboring New Caledonia and contaminating local water supplies.

Like Kilauea, Yasur is a visitor attraction, though quite a bit farther off the beaten track. It is possible to hike to the summit area of Yasur (361 m, 1,184 ft. high) and experience the eruptive activity from the crater rim. This can be a dangerous expedition, however, as lava bombs are sometimes ejected to the crater rim and far beyond. In the mid-1990s, several people were killed by falling volcanic bombs.

The small island nation of Vanuatu consists of about 82 islands whose total area is similar to Hawaii Island. Vanuatu has many active volcanoes, including Yasur. Ambrym, the most voluminous of Vanuatu’s volcanoes, is also very active, with about 50 eruptions since 1774, most of them explosive, and two of them resulting in fatalities.

It is also a source of vog and acid rain that affect the local population. Acid rainfall in 1979 was so intense that it literally burned some of the inhabitants, as well as contaminating water supplies.

Vanuatu is not only highly active volcanically, but also seismically, as is common in subduction zones, such as the one associated with the volcanic arc of Vanuatu. Just last week, a magnitude (M) 7.5 earthquake struck offshore. Only a small local tsunami was generated, and no one was reported hurt.

The previous large earthquake in the region, a M7.1, shook the islands less than 3 months ago. And just last year, in October 2009, two tremendous quakes, M7.8 and 7.7, occurred 15 minutes apart. After these events, an M7.4 aftershock struck approximately one hour later, and M 6.6 and M 6.8 aftershocks occurred on the following day.

Indeed, the Vanuatu region experiences many large earthquakes, with almost 50 events of magnitude 7 and larger having been recorded since 1973.

Although Hawaii is also seismically active, only the 1975 earthquake had a magnitude greater than 7 in the same period. Though we have a lower occurrence of large quakes in Hawaii, they are often generated at shallower depths. This, along with the greater population density of the Hawaiian Islands, tends to make them more damaging than those in Vanuatu.

Once again, this is not really Big Island-related, but it is a cool photo …

Researchers do not yet know what is lighting up IRAS 05437+2502, a small, faint nebula that spans only 1/18th of a full moon toward the constellation of the Taurus. Particularly enigmatic is the bright upside-down V that defines the upper edge of this floating mountain of interstellar dust.

This ghost-like nebula involves a small star-forming region filled with dark dust that was first noted in images taken by the IRAS satellite in infrared light in 1983. This recently released image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows many new details, but has not uncovered a clear cause of the bright sharp arc.

(Photo courtesy of NASA, ESA, Hubble, R. Sahai, JPL)

Average ocean temperature differences (at water depths of between 20 meters and 1000 meters depths) around the main Hawaiian Islands for the period July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2009 (the color palette is from 18°C to 24°C); the relatively more favorable area in the lee of the islands is clearly visible. (Image special to Hawaii 24/7 by Gerard Nihous)

MEDIA RELEASE | Newswise

Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa say the Leeward side of Hawaiian Islands may be ideal for future ocean-based renewable energy plants that would use seawater from the oceans’ depths to drive massive heat engines and produce steady amounts of renewable energy.

The technology, referred to as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), is described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, which is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

It involves placing a heat engine between warm water collected at the ocean’s surface and cold water pumped from the deep ocean. Like a ball rolling downhill, heat flows from the warm reservoir to the cool one. The greater the temperature difference, the stronger the flow of heat that can be used to do useful work such as spinning a turbine and generating electricity.

The history of OTEC dates back more than a half century. However, the technology has never taken off — largely because of the relatively low cost of oil and other fossil fuels. But if there are any places on Earth where large OTEC facilities would be most cost competitive, it is where the ocean temperature differentials are the greatest.

Analyzing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Oceanographic Data Center, the University of Hawaii’s Gerard Nihous says that the warm-cold temperature differential is about one degree Celsius greater on the leeward (western) side of the Hawaiian Islands than that on the windward (eastern) side.

This small difference translates to 15 percent more power for an OTEC plant, says Nihous, whose theoretical work focuses on driving down cost and increasing efficiency of future facilities, the biggest hurdles to bringing the technology to the mainstream.

“Testing that was done in the 1980s clearly demonstrates the feasibility of this technology,” he says. “Now it’s just a matter of paying for it.”

The article, “Mapping available Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion resources around the main Hawaiian Islands with state-of-the-art tools” by Gerard C. Nihous will appear in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.

Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) that covers all areas of renewable and sustainable energy-related fields that apply to the physical science and engineering communities.

As an electronic-only, Web-based journal with rapid publication time, JRSE is responsive to the many new developments expected in this field. The interdisciplinary approach of the publication ensures that the editors draw from researchers worldwide in a diverse range of fields.

The American Institute of Physics is a federation of 10 physical science societies representing more than 135,000 scientists, engineers, and educators and is one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific information in the physical sciences.

Offering partnership solutions for scientific societies and for similar organizations in science and engineering, AIP is a leader in the field of electronic publishing of scholarly journals.

AIP publishes 12 journals (some of which are the most highly cited in their respective fields), two magazines, including its flagship publication Physics Today; and the AIP Conference Proceedings series. Its online publishing platform Scitation hosts nearly two million articles from more than 185 scholarly journals and other publications of 28 learned society publishers.

— Find out more:

http://jrse.aip.org/

http://jrse.aip.org/jrsebh/v2/i4/p043104_s1

http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/

http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/ongoing-projects/otec-thermal-resource/