Nauki ścisłe priorytetem społeczeostwa opartego na wiedzy Artykuły na platformę CMS. Why are Men from Mars, Women from Venus?

Transcription

1 S t r o n a 1 Author Peter Śliżewski Topic Why are Men from Mars, Women from Venus? This article can complement the theme of the Solar System. To do the exercises the Internet, the map of the sky and binoculars will be useful. Introduction Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus it is a well-known book by John Gray which says that a man and a woman are two different worlds. Sometimes so different and distant that it is difficult to understand one another, and yet complementary to each other and need each other. The book's title was an incentive to get interested in the planets, particularly those close to the Earth. Venus and Mars, are also two different worlds, so that even metaphorically can it be said that women are from Venus and men from Mars? Title 1 Planets Starlit sky enchants with its beauty. A cliche? Maybe yes, maybe not. The man looked at the stars, since its inception, and observed that they rotate together and do not change their position relative to each other. The man noticed that several stars behave differently than others, that they move with respect to these constant ones and also go through the very complex ways, namely, a path that loops. Precisely because of the complicated path of the observed objects they are called planets, from the Greek planetes - wandering. Figure 1 Another position of Mars in the sky as seen from Earth.

2 S t r o n a 2 Figures 1, 2 and 3 explain why Mars seen from the Earth, travel on the road in the shape of a loop. In ancient times five of the eight planets were known which we know today, and were given the names of mythological gods: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Sun and the Moon were included to the planets. Only in modern times, with the rise of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, they were excluded from the group, while the Earth was considered as a planet. Figure 2. Another position of Mars and circled by the loop in the sky. Figure 3. Animation of Mars journey across the sky and the marking its loop. In order to answer the question which object is a planet and which is not, is no a small problem even in modern times. The new definition of a planet was adopted in 2006 at the Congress of the International Astronomical Union. According to this definition, Pluto does not meet one of the conditions, 'is big enough to clean up their surroundings in other bodies in the gravitational interaction, and that is why it was included to the so-called dwarf planets. For the same reason the Earth was at risk as a planet! Fortunately the exploration of the problem allowed the Earth to continue to remain a planet and circle around the Sun along with the other seven planets of the Solar System. Title 2 Venus All the planets orbit the Sun in a counter-clockwise direction. It is known also that they rotate around its own axis, and Venus is the one of the planets that rotates the opposite to her companions. She does it very, very slowly, the slowest of all the planets of the solar system. It takes her more than 243 earthly days. Any attempt to answer the question of why women are from Venus, and being a bit malicious can be stated as: well, after all, women are perverse. When we continue to use the metaphor, we can say both about women and about Venus that they are mysterious. The

3 S t r o n a 3 mystery of Venus lies in the fact that for centuries she concealed the truth about himself behind a thick and dense atmosphere. The surface of Venus and the composition of its atmosphere was analyzed only in the twentieth century, when it began to use methods such as spectroscopy and when a spacecraft could get there. Previously, it was impossible. It was found that the atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide (96.5%) and nitrogen. Over the atmosphere there are still thick clouds containing sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets. This dense atmosphere makes the pressure on the surface of Venus about 95 times larger than Earth, and the temperature on the surface is about 460 o C. It turned out that a large surface of Venus is covered by volcanic plains (about 80%) and the rest are the highlands. There are raging storms and winds with speeds exceeding 350 km / h. Conditions do not encourage you to visit the planet, or to the creation of the life there. So why the hostile planet was named after the goddess of love? Perhaps because Venus through her impenetrable atmosphere that reflects light very well, and seen from the Earth is the third-brightest object after the Sun and Moon. For many centuries she played an important role in many cultures. Because of the similar size, weight and chemical composition to the Earth it is sometimes called as a Earth s sister. The weight of each body on both planets would be similar, because Venus s gravity acceleration is 0.9 of gravity acceleration on Earth. Venus is also called the Evening Star or Morning Star (the Dawn), and that's because we can observe the night s sky, about three hours before sunset, and about three hours before sunrise. Title 3 Mars Mars was named after the Roman god of war. Sometimes also referred to as the Red Planet. Both names it owes its rust-colored surface. It does not hide in the impenetrable atmosphere, like Venus, even though its gas coating is also made up of 95% of carbon dioxide, it is thinner, not so thick and much clearer. Mars is about half the size of Earth, but has several features similar to our planet. The structure of the land, like in the Earth, is very varied. There are vast plains, mountain ranges, valleys and extinct volcanoes, including the giant volcano with a height of about 25 km, which is probably the highest mountain in the Solar System. The running time of Mars on its axis is 24 hours 39 minutes and 35 seconds. A Martian day lasts this time. It is called solem and is very close to the length of Earth's day. Also, the slope of the axis of rotation is close to the angle of inclination of the Earth's axis, which means that Mars has the seasons of a year, but they last almost twice as long because the Martian year is about 687 Earth s days. Also like in the Earth, spring and summer in the northern hemisphere of Mars, last longer than autumn and winter, but Earth s spring gently turns into summer, autumn into winter, but on Mars the warmest is at the beginning of the summer, while the coldest at the beginning of winters. This is due to the lack of water in the liquid state. But its existence has been found in the solid state, mainly in the frozen polar caps, and it is water in oceans, seas, which accounts for about 70% of the surface of the planet, slowly accumulates heat and slowly it reflects and affects the temperature. In this way our seasons do not start so suddenly. When on Earth there will soon be spring, on the Red Planet it will be February 23, 2013, the beginning of winter. Due to the presence of water it is believed that the conditions on Mars may be suitable for life. More intensive research may allow people to land on Mars in the near future. Currently three artificial satellite revolve around Mars, and on the surface there are two working rovers. The last of the submissions is Curiosity. It landed on Mars August 6th, 2012, the name of the rover can be translated into Polish as a curiosity or a desire to learn. It becomes particularly important given the fact that the first probe was sent in Since then, dozens of Mars mission were sent, and half of

4 S t r o n a 4 them failed. There is even a joke about the curse of Mars. Curiosity is an automated and autonomous research laboratory that has a variety of tasks, including exploring the possibility of a continuation of organic life on Mars. The collected data, enrich the knowledge of the still not quite the learned planet. Also serve to develop concepts for future Mars missions. When a man has landed on Mars and will be watching the night sky, shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, you will be able to see the earth, much brighter than all the stars. But before we fly to Mars we should look at the sky. Even a layman can probably find familiar constellations, and may also spot Venus or Mars and perhaps the imagination will tell him if indeed women are from Venus and men from Mars. We do not often have the opportunity to enjoy the view of the starry sky. But when I have the opportunity I try to take pictures. Figure 4 shows the most beautiful winter sky constellation that is Orion. Its brightest star is white Rigel, a giant emits times more energy than the Sun. The second-brightest but much bigger is Betelgeuse. Figure 4. Photography constellation of Orion made on , in the vicinity of Bialystok with drawings marked on them. The last picture on the right shows the other stars included in the constellation and the outline of a hunter ancient in the ancient ideas.

5 S t r o n a 5 Exercises: Summation 1. Try to see Venus in the sky. Please be aware that you observe, not only Venus, it is good to be away from the city lights when the sky is cloudless. If you have binoculars, it's very useful. Also the sky s map will be helpful. There are many websites where you can find it, but it is just enough to type in a search: sky s map. Look also for the information about in what constellation is now Venus and mark its location on the printed map of the sky. 2. Locate in the sky the constellation of Orion or another. Take a look at the stars of the constellation. Do you think the stars are similar to the Sun? Do they have similar size, temperature? Are they equally distant from Earth? Look for information on the subject. 3 Watch a video about Mars and its discovery, which is located at:

6 S t r o n a 6 Bibliography 1. Kozielski M. - Physics and Astronomy, Publisher PWN, Warsaw, A. Schulz - Stars atlas, Publisher RM, Warsaw Brzostkiewicz S. - Observin our sky, Publisher OUR BOOKSTORE, Warsaw Plum W. - Year on Mars, Knowledge and life, 2012 No. 10 (934), pp W. Plum - Red Planet by the expert s eye, 2013, No. 1 (937), s on dated r 8. dated r 9. of dnia the dated r The list of figures and photographs Figure 1. Another position of Mars in the sky seen from the Earth., developed by Olga Śliżewska Figure 2. Another position of Mars and circled by its loop in the sky, developed by Olga Śliżewska Figure 3 Animation of Mars journey across the sky and the ticking of his loop, developed by Olga Śliżewska Figure 4. Photography constellation of Orion made on , in the vicinity of Bialystok with him drawings on it. The last picture on the right shows the other stars included in the constellation and the outline of a hunter ancient in the ancient ideas. Developed by Olga Śliżewska based on a photograph taken near Bialystok on 05/02/2013, by Peter Śliżewskiego