pai:e 2 - The,l3ehond College Collegian. Thursday, March 5, 1998
d Mulfinger, Manager of Housing and Food Services
organization tries to
aise interest in economics
by Scott Warofka
shill %t riter
Are you interested in finding out
acti), What "economics" is? If so,
lere Is a new organization on cam
us that has the answer. The Student
Ir. Roger Knacke, Director of the School of Science, presents "The Clouds of Jupiter"
t last week's astronomy open house.
r. Knacke presents Jupiter
by Will Jordan
chill triter
'The Clouds of Jupiter. - Dr. Roger
:nacke. Director of the School of
'cience. conducted the astronomy
pen house last Thursday in Science
UI. the open house was attended
y several children and senior citi-
Dr. Knacks opened by welcoming
veryone to the fifth of Behrend's
pen houses this year dealing with
Jronoim and spoke Of events to look
ir in the future. March 26 there will
,c a speaker on extra-solar planets
ilanets outside of our solar system).
hey arc also working to construct
otter telescope facilities.
I topic of discussion was Jupi
'F. the avian atmosphere. and its
itellites. Dr. Knacke had slides to
(implement his lecture. Jupiter
, eighs 318 times as much as the
irth. It has a variety of clouds within
, Atmosphere. Jupiter has many
'ons. There are four Galilean sat
i!es which are moons discovered by
,Nwriorner Galileor
Jupiter is a very cloudy planet. The
rc 01 . the planet is ten to fifteen times
photo by Jason Blake
Government Association has re
cently voted to recognize the Soci
ety of Undergraduate Economists as
a new organization on campus.
In addition to conveying the im
portance of their major in regard to
as big as the Earth. In size relation
ship, Jupiter is the largest followed by
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Earth.
If you look at Jupiter through a tele
scope you will see a large "red spot"
which has been identified as a large
Jovian hurricane. "You don't want to
get into a Jovian Hurricane if you can
avoid it," Knacke told the audience.
The winds of Jupiter are much stron
ger than those on Earth. There is a
thin, light gas ring which surrounds
Jupiter, similar to Saturn. The geog
raphy or depth of the planet has been
defined by the colors of the clouds in
Jupiter's atmosphere. Orange clouds
indicate the deepest level; white
clouds indicate the higher level.
Jupiter has a very strange environ
ment. The atmosphere is predomi
nantly hydrogen. The atmosphere of
Jupiter is reducing while Earth's at
mosphere is an oxidizing pattern.
Early in Earth's history there had been
relatively less oxygen than there is
today. "Oxygen is created by life and
life needs it to keep existing," said
Knacke. By learning more about Ju
piter, we learn more about Earth.
"We want to understand the Earth's
problem with pets are: the sanitation,
the abandonment, the noise, and the
safety. "So many people are allergic
or afraid of pets," said Mulfinger.
Well, if you can't control them, you
don't deserve to have one," stated
Plummer. Animals are unpredictable,
no one can tell what they are going to
do. The abandonment issue troubles
the Housing and Food Service staff
because they are the people who are
responsible for the animal's safety
after it's been left behind. "I think
you should fine them, give them some
repercussion for what they do, it's
abuse, " stated Angela Snippert, 04
Criminology. The problem with giv
ing a fine is that it's hard to prove that
a certain animal belonged to a certain
person. The sanitation issue affects
everyone. Certain animals carry with
business, members have been hard
at work building the new club. Todd
Shade, 06 economics, has been
elected by other members to serve
as the organization's first president.
Shade said that the organization
grew out of necessity. He and sev
eral other economics majors were
discouraged by the overall lack of
understanding pertaining to their
discipline. Shade explained that
many of the employment recruiters
would pass on economics majors in
favor of better known business re-
lated majors.
Shade went on to say that the or
ganization has several goals. One of
the primary goals is to explain what
an economics major studies and
some of the career paths available
to graduates. Second, the students
wanted to establish a resource for
other economics students. Shade
said, "We wanted to pass on to un
derclassmen internship and employ
ment opportunities. Sometimes they
don't feel comfortable talking with
an advisor."
Dr. James Kurre, associate pro
fessor of economics and one of four
faculty advisors to the organization,
photo by Jason Blake
atmosphere," he stated. Earth is a
physical system. It is one system by
itself. We learn techniques, problems,
and issues of our atmosphere by
studying the atmosphere's of the other
planets in our solar system. For ex
ample, by studying the atmosphere of
Mars we learn what would happen if
Earth's atmosphere became filled
with dust.
After asking some simple questions
to get the younger people in the audi
ence more involved in the lecture and
doing a little magic trick by adding a
solution to water and turning the wa
ter to ice, Knacke next talked about
the relationship between the clouds of
Jupiter and the clouds of Earth. The
upper clouds of Jupiter are basically
composed of ammonium crystals.
Our highest clouds are composed of
ice crystals. There are very violent
lightning storms on Jupiter due to all
of the transport in the atmosphere.
The next segment of the lecture was
on the mission of the space probe
"Galileo." The mission to find out the
chemical and physical composition of
Jupiter and its satellites began in 1989
when "Galileo" was launched.
News
them diseases, fleas, or fecal matter
that can be spread among the student
population due to unsanitary condi
tions. For example, a lizard can
spread a disease to its owner if the
owner did not wash his/her hands af
ter handling the lizard. This is a ma
jor concern of Housing and Food Ser
vices.
Housing and Food Services of Uni
versity Park make up the rules and
regulations that every student must
adhere to. It is Penn State Behrend's
Housing and Food Services' duty to
carry out these regulations for the
benefit of the entire student body.
Therefore, because a group may want
something it may infringe on others'
likes or dislikes as well.
agreed. Kurre said that one of the
primary goals was to " ...promote
the major." He explained that
through understanding the major
and what career opportunities are
available, the organization will help
provide a means for current and fu
ture students to network. He went
on to explain that in addition to these
goals, the organization will provide,
"the opportunity for economics stu
dents to talk with other economics
students."
The organization has planned
several activities that will help
members enhance their understand
ing of economics. Among the pro
posed activities is inviting speakers
from various business related dis
ciplines to address the organization.
Other ideas include attending re
lated conferences and visits to the
New York Stock Exchange and the
Federal Reserve Bank.
The organization is open to stu
dents of all majors with an interest
in economics. Meetings will be held
every other Tuesday starting March
17 at 8 pm in Academic 57.
"Galileo" reached Jupiter in 1995 and
began to orbit. The whole mission
cost over a billion dollars. "Galileo"
shot a probe into the atmosphere and
parachuted down. The probe col
lected and relayed data for about 80
minutes before contact was lost. The
probe unfortunately entered the atmo
sphere at a clear spot where there were
no clouds. Ten percent of Jupiter is
not cloud covered. The main probe
of "Galileo" is still orbiting Jupiter.
It takes the probe a up to a month to
relay its data back to Earth due to the
fact that the main antenna failed. The
scientists had to reprogram the com
puter to relay the information through
the "probe relay antenna" which is
smaller and slower than the main an
tenna would have been.
The four Galilean satellites are 10,
Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.
"How do we measure distant ob
jects?" asked Knacke to audience
members. An infrared space obser
vatory, a telescope that orbits the
Earth, makes heat measurements. It
was put in space by the European ver
sion of NASA.
Light characteristics tell what ele
ment something is composed of. At
this point Dr. Knacke did a small ex
periment to demonstrate what is done.
He had four petri dishes which were
filled with four different elements,
Wet snow covers a tree in the Gorge this week to symbolize the final days of winter
What are your plans for
Spring Break?
"I'm going to go home and sit on my
ass."
"I plan to go to Cancun."
"I'm going to work alot."
-Rick Armstrong, 02, DUS
"I'm going to stay on campus."
-Meghan Stevenson, 06, English
"I'm going to Daytona Beach."
-Nathan Jones, 04, Communications
"Nothing."
"I'm doing all the homework I have due
after break."
Police And Safety
02/26/98 Complainant hit her head on the windowsill in
her room causing a deep gash. She was conscious and
requested that a friend transport her to the hospital.
02/27/98 Complainant reported hearing a loud explosion
in the apartment quad area. Possible M-80. Searched the
area but found nothing.
02/27/98 Vehicle had slipped the parking brake and
coasted off the parking lot into the drainage pond. Owner
was contacted and vehicle was able to be driven out.
02/27/98 Complainant stated he received a letter from
student affairs concerning disciplinary action against him
from a police report and he didn't know what it was for.
Found it was for driving in the quad.
03/01/98 Officer stopped vehicle driving too fast in the
south lot. Verbal warning was given to the driver.
03/02/98 RA reported two rottweilers running loose in the
apartment area.
sodium. He them lit them on fire
which caused them to produce differ
ent colors. Bromide became green,
potassium became blue, strontium
became red, and sodium became yel
low. He said that in the chemistry lab
they use a spectrometer which shows
a flux spectrum from Jupiter.
Out of the four satellites, Europa
has the strangest appearance. There
are many cracks on the surface. The
surface is fairly young, there are very
few craters on the surface, and there
is a lot of ice. The surface of Europa
resembles the Arctic. There are big
pieces of ice sheets. The fact that the
material in between the ice sheets has
frozen up again suggests that there is
or was water on Europa. The signifi
cance of this is the search of life. Liq
uid water equals life. "Is there life on
-Todd Pound, 02, Accounting
-Steve Taylor, 04, Accounting
-Shawn Dunson, 10, MEBD
-Bill Ross, 06, Management
out , NASA has extended the Galileo
mission for two more years. On De
cember 31, 1999, Galileo will fly very
close to the satellite Io which has a
lot of volcanic activity, in which case
the space craft will be destroyed. The
closest flyby of Europa was con
ducted in December of last year.
The next segment of the lecture was
a question and answer session. The
first question was "How do we know
that it's liquid water on Europa?" Dr.
Knacke answered by saying that it
was too warm for nitrogen, and that
it is water from its reflection. "How
deep did the probe penetrate Jupiter's
atmosphere?" "100 kilometers or 20
bars below the hypothetical water
clouds." "Is the "great red spot" per
manent?" "Very possible. It is more
like a hurricane, an atmos heric dis-