ANALOGS OF THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM

Within the last few decades, the existence of protoplanetary disks has been inferred on the basis of emission from T Tauri stars that does not arise from a stellar photosphere. More recently, high-resolution interferometric techniques have resolved the dust continuum emission, and millimeter arrays have imaged circumstellar molecular gas. These measurements corroborate the disk interpretation; many T Tauri stars are surrounded by centrifugally supported circumstellar disks with radial sizes of order 100 AU. Further proof issues from Hubble Space Telescope images of disks that are illuminated externally. The morphology of circumstellar dust is revealed in striking detail and affirms the prevalence and dimensions of disks imaged at longer wavelengths. The fate of circumstellar material around young stars must be understood in order to discern the degree to which these disks are proto-planetary. Observational studies of circumstellar disks which are in the beginning of a dispersal phase are challenging and place great demands on astronomical techniques. Nevertheless, the connection between disks and the formation of extra-solar planets is supported by increasing circumstantial evidence. Optically thin dust continuum emission persists in T Tauri stars and is detected around some young main sequence stars. Since the dust is subject to rapid dispersal by radiation pressure and Poynting-Robertson drag, some mechanism of replenishment is required. Disks around nearby young main sequence stars show evidence for inner voids and disk asymmetries that should also disappear on short timescales. The presence of large orbiting bodies which collide and interact with the resulting debris can explain both the persistence of optically thin dust and the maintenance of otherwise-ephemeral dynamical features. Together with recent detections of extra-solar planets, these observations lend some support to the hypothesis that circumstellar disks commonly give birth to planetary systems.     

生物预警系统探讨

本文运用系统工程观点给出生物预警系统概念,并给出一些应用例子。     

陕南早寒武世早期管柱状生物化石新发现

繁殖是生物体产生子代的现象,是生物体最基本的特征之一.最近作者在陕南宁强宽川铺地区早寒武世最早期的宽川铺生物群中发现了数十枚管柱状生物化石,首次发现这些管柱状生物化石具可能的"断裂生殖"特征.在部分管柱状生物化石上可清晰分辨出"收缢带"、"收缢纹"和"新生单节"等断裂生殖特征,据此建立可能的管柱状生物"断裂生殖"生殖发育序列.     

PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY OF THE SOLAR NEBULA

The solar system is thought to have begun in a flattened disk of gas and dust referred to traditionally as the solar nebula. Such a construct seems to be a natural product of the collapse of dense parts of giant molecular clouds, the vast star-forming regions that pepper the Milky Way and other galaxies. Gravitational, magnetic and thermal forces within the solar nebula forced a gradual evolution of mass toward the center (where the sun formed) and angular momentum (borne by a small fraction of the mass) toward the outer more distant regions of the disk. This evolution was accompanied by heating and a strong temperature contrast from the hot, inner regions to the cold, more remote parts of the disk. The resulting chemistry in the disk determined the initial distribution of organic matter in the planets; most of the reduced carbon species, in condensed form, were located beyond the asteroid belt (the outer solar system). The Earth could have received much of its inventory of pre-biological material from comets and other icy fragments of the process of planetary formation in the outer solar system.