Brazil Delays Stargazing Pact
Hello
reader!
It
follows a news published yesterday (03/09), in the site "www.nature.com",
announcing that Brazil delays stargazing pact.
Duda Falcão
Nature - News
Brazil Delays Stargazing Pact
Reluctance to pay entrance
fees stalls European
Southern Observatory’s giant telescope.
Rafael Garcia
03 September 2013
ESO
The
39-metre Extremely Large Telescope in Chile
(artist’s impression) will suffer
setbacks without Brazilian money.
|
On 28 August, Jorge Meléndez stepped into a room full
of journalists to announce a remarkable discovery: an 8.2-billion-year-old star
that was depleted in elements such as iron and aluminium in almost exactly the
same way as the Sun — a hint that the older star could host terrestrial
planets. In an age when astronomers are obsessed with finding another Earth,
Meléndez had found something nearly as exciting: a solar twin.
Even more significant than the discovery were its
circumstances. Meléndez, an astronomer at the University of São Paulo, Brazil,
had found the star using an elite telescope that belongs to the European
Southern Observatory (ESO) — a sign of a functioning, if fragile, transatlantic
co-dependency.
In 2010, Brazil signed an agreement with ESO, becoming
the organization’s first non-European member. Brazil’s membership fees would
allow ESO to begin construction of its €1.1-billion (US$1.5-billion), 39-metre
Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). In return, Brazil’s small but growing cadre of
astronomers would get access to ESO’s existing telescopes in Chile. Meléndez’s
discovery came after just two nights of observation at the Very Large Telescope,
ESO’s premier observatory, in the Atacama Desert. He has been granted a further
88 nights at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, where he is looking for planets
that orbit solar twins. “Before the ESO agreement, it would have been
impossible for me to do this,” he says.
But the relationship has started to fray. Nearly three
years after the agreement was signed, Brazil’s Congress still has not ratified
it. The country has made nominal membership payments of €4 million a year,
maintaining access to ESO telescopes for astronomers such as Meléndez, but has
not coughed up its full entrance fees and annual dues, which are expected to
total about €270 million over a decade.ESO officials say that further delays
will cause the nation to miss out on lucrative construction contracts for the
ELT, which will be solicited by the end of this year. “The longer Brazil waits,
the more it risks compromising the opportunity for Brazilian companies to be
awarded such large contracts,” says Tim de Zeeuw, director-general of ESO at
its headquarters in Garching, Germany.
No one in Brazil’s executive government is pushing the
agreement. The science minister who signed it, Sergio Rezende, left the cabinet
just days later, and his successor did nothing with the document. It was not
until this February, more than a year after the arrival of current minister
Marco Antonio Raupp, that the agreement was formally sent to Congress for
ratification. But Raupp, whose emphasis has been on innovation and applied
science over basic research since his term began, is not seen as a champion of
ESO membership.
That has essentially left Brazilian astronomers to
lobby Congress on their own. And not all of them are in favour of joining ESO;
some see it as an expensive step that will bankrupt more modest, home-grown
efforts to nurture Brazilian astronomy.
João Steiner, an astronomer at the University of São
Paulo, is the most vocal critic of ESO membership. He argues that Brazil’s fees
— which are based on the country’s gross domestic product — are comparable to
those of Italy and the United Kingdom, even though Brazil has fewer
astronomers, and fewer still with research programmes mature enough to compete
for observation time. “It doesn’t make sense for us to subsidize European
science with Brazilian taxpayers’ money,” says Steiner.
He would prefer Brazilian astronomers to work with
more affordable telescopes. These include Gemini, two 8-metre telescopes in
Chile and Hawaii, run by six countries including Brazil; the Southern
Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR), a 4.1-metre instrument in Chile
part-owned by Brazil; and a 1.6-metre telescope at Brazil’s own Pico dos Dias
Observatory near Itajubá.
But Marcio Maia, an astronomer at the National
Observatory in Rio de Janeiro, says that his country should be ambitious. “If
Brazil wants to remain in the Stone Age of astronomy, we can do it at the city
of Itajubá, where there is nothing to be seen, we can keep our meagre share at
Gemini or we can use SOAR, a telescope with no good instrument,” he says. “We
can only learn how to do cutting-edge astronomy by entering the competition and
fighting for it.”
Steiner acknowledges that joining ESO would bring
benefits, but says that the fees are too high at a time when Brazil is unlikely
to take on expensive projects. In July, the government announced a
10-billion-real (US$4.3-billion) cut to overall federal expenses. And the
Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has little room in its own
budget; it says that it would have to commit 12% of its general funding to
honour the ESO agreement if Congress does not approve new spending for it. Such
a commitment is unlikely from Raupp, who has blamed the delay in ratification
on the lack of consensus. “The strong divide in the Brazilian astronomical
community is certainly an important fact that cannot be ignored,” says José
Roberto Ferreira, a spokesman for Raupp.
But contrarians such as Steiner seem to be in the
minority, according to a 2010 poll by the Brazilian Astronomical Society. In
interviews of 180 of the society’s 660 astronomers, 75% supported the ESO
agreement. Another 17% (mostly theoretical cosmologists) declined to vote; just
8% were against membership.
Even with strong support from astronomers, however, it
will be difficult to persuade Congress to approve membership by the end of
2013.
If Brazil fails to ratify the agreement, ESO could
boost its funding by adding other member states. Russia, Poland, Canada and
Australia have all expressed interest. “We are being regularly approached by
other countries,” says de Zeeuw. But it would be years before money from
any new member would arrive. If ESO wants to build the ELT, it has few choices
but to wait for Brazil.
Source: Website
www.nature.com
Comentário: Pois é leitor, está ia mais esse imbróglio
criado por esses energúmenos que não se resolve, e creio eu não se resolverá.
Mas enfim, esse é o BRA ZIL ZIL ZIL ZIL da Mãe Joana e sua trupe de debiloides inconsequentes
aliados a uma casa legislativa inoperante e corrupta que mais parece um circo. Aproveitamos para agradecer ao leitor André C. Castro pelo envio dessa matéria.
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