The Ugly Nature of the Earth's Twin Sister

Venus wouldn't be a comfortable planet to live on: it is hot enough to melt lead [led], the air is thick enough to swim in, and there are never-ending electrical storms. Venus is closer to the Sun than the Earth is, and the sunlight reaching Venus is twice as powerful as that reaching the Earth. However, it has also been found that Venus might not be too hot to support life, and even to picture it as the home of some mysterious fair-haired Venusians [vi'njuisianz].

Unfortunately, this attractive idea does not stand up to close examina­tion. Instead of spinning anti-clockwise like most other planets, Venus revolves clockwise, and it turns so slowly that the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east 59 days later. This means that during the long Venu-sian " day" the temperature has time to reach 450 degrees Centigrade easily hot enough to melt tin or lead. Moreover, the polar axis is almost vertical, so there are no seasons.

But the real shock comes when we consider the atmosphere. Normally, you expect that the closer a planet is to the Sun, the less atmosphere it will be able to retain. Venus, however, has an atmosphere about 100 times as dense as ours. The air is much too thick to run in and you would rather have to swim and not to walk in it. On the other hand, the atmosphere is so thick, that you could fly through it without any problem. The winds are very slow; the Russian spacecraft Venera 10 measured on landing a maximum air flow of seven miles per hour, yet the atmosphere is so dense that a seven mile per hour wind could be strong enough to knock down a tall building.

Most of Venus is permanently covered in clouds of sulphur and sulphuric acid, and these clouds absorb so much of the Sun's light that on

the surface of the planet there is no more than a dark reddish gloom. The Russian spacecrafts Venera 9 and Venera JO found that there was enough light to take TV pictures. This light, however, came not from the Sun, but from flashes of lightning given off by continual electric storms.

All in all, then, Venus turns out to be a dramatic though extremely inhospitable place, and, along with Mars, Jupiter ['cfeurpita] and Saturn [s3't9: n] has to be added to the list of planets that are quite incapable of supporting human life.

ЗАДАНИЯ К ТЕКСТУ

• Выпишите из текста английские эквиваленты следующих русских словосочетаний:

в два раза сильнее; светловолосый; к сожалению; привлекатель­ная идея; тщательное изучение; по часовой стрелке; против часовой стрелки; более того; сто раз плотнее нашей; с другой стороны; тем­но-красноватый мрак; вспышки молнии; в целом; негостеприимное место; вместе с

• Заполните пропуски соответствующими словами.

1. Unlike most other planets Venus is spinning.... 2. Instead of running or walking on Venus you would have to... or to.... 3. The temperature on the planet is hot enough to.... 4. The atmosphere is so... that a 7 mile/h wind would be strong enough to.... 5. The sunlight reaching Venus is..., however, on the surface of the planet you could see only.... 6. There was enough light to take TV pictures on Venus, though this light came not from... but from....

• Назовите черты планеты Венера, которые можно было бы охарак­теризовать словом ugly.

Reading 28B

Прочитайте текст за две минуты. Найдите гипотезу, высказанную относительно планеты Юпитер.

Слова для понимания текста:

scarcely adv — вряд ли, с трудом; rock n — горная порода; puzzle v— озадачивать, удивлять; contract v — сжиматься

Jupiter: the Planetless Planet?

What is Jupiter? *The scientists analyzing the results of the flights past Jupiter have found that, for all its size, the giant planet may scarcely be called a planet. Given Jupiter's size and mass the scientists suggest that its interior is largely liquid hydrogen with a ball of rocky material at the centre.

It's a new idea and it is not 100 per cent accepted. But among people who work in the area there is 80 to 90 percent agreement that Jupiter is a liquid planet.

•Jupiter radiates 2.5 times as much heat as it receives from the Sun, something that has puzzled astronomers. The scientists believe that the source is heat left over from Jupiter's birth. They say Jupiter is contracting very slowly and when a liquid body contracts, it loses heat. This means Jupiter was far hotter at its formation.

• Найдите в тексте ответы на следующие вопросы:

1. What fact about Jupiter surprised astronomers greatly? 2. What percent of professionals doubt that Jupiter is a liquid planet? 3. What makes most astronomers assume that Jupiter must be a liquid planet?

• Переведите на русский язык предложения, помеченные звез­дочкой.

(4) Conversation Practice

• Answer the questions on Text 28A.

1. Why might you expect the surface of Venus to be fairly cool? 2. Why, in fact, is the surface of Venus hot? 3. If you tried to walk on Venus, what problem would you have? 4. Why might you expect the surface of Venus to be bright? 5. Why is there in fact, very little sunlight on the surface? 6. How did the spacecrafts manage to take TV pictures? 7. What is the most unusual thing about Venus compared with the other planets? 8. What makes the Earth's nature so beautiful and the Venus' nature so ugly? 9. What mysterious and as yet unexplained features does Venus possess?

• Speak on the following topics:

1. Venus is the Earth's twin sister.

2. Environmental conditions on Venus as compared with those on the Earth (light / heat / atmosphere).

3. Exploration of cosmos with spaceships and orbital cosmic stations.

(5) Home Exercises

1. Дайте адекватные русские эквиваленты следующих английских словосочетаний:

a powerfully attractive man; a fair-haired girl; powerfully impressive ideas; powerfully dominanting winds; powerful never-ending storms; a

densely packed space; powerful electromagnetic fields; an extremely dense atmosphere

2. Прочитайте следующие предложения и переведите их на русский язык, обращая внимание на употребление глаголов в форме сослага­тельного наклонения:

1. Our scientific adviser insists that we should take part in the work of the conference to be held in Dubna in June. 2. He insists that our group should present a paper dealing with one of the problems of cosmic research. 3. He proposes that the paper should consist of three parts, the last one discussing the experimental results obtained. 4. It is suggested that the experiments be repeated in part under essentially changed conditions. 5. We must work hard as it is demanded that we should present the paper on time. 6. I wish I would take part in the conference. But it is rather doubtful that I should go there for I shall be taking my exams at the time.

3. Переведите на английский язык следующие русские предло­жения, используя сослагательное наклонение после безличных обо­ротов:

It's quite necessary...; It's rather doubtful...; It is essential...; I wish...; He ordered...; He insists...

1. Нам необходимо сделать первые шаги в понимании этого явления. 2. Сомнительно, чтобы мы решили эту задачу без измере­ний объекта исследования. 3. Научный руководитель (supervisor) настаивает, чтобы экспериментальные исследования точно вос­производили реальные условия. 4. Существенно важно точно указать взаимосвязь между наблюдаемым объектом и извест­ными нам явлениями этого класса. 5. Ректор требует, чтобы работа была выполнена в срок. 6 Хотелось бы мне заняться этой проблемой

Speed, Time, Distance

Kinematics and dynamics are the two branches of mechanics concerned with the phenomena of motion. A complete description of a moving par­ticle or object would involve its mass, forces producing change of speed, direction of motion, time, speed, the distance travelled, etc. Kinematics describes motion with respect to speed, time and distance only, while dynamics deals with the causes or laws of motion, involving the nature of the particle or object whose motion is under study.

Here, we are to define motion only from the standpoint of measure­ment of speed as amount of change of position per unit time. Generally, the word " per" indicates division. For example, " mass per unit volume" means mass divided by volume.

The definition of speed gives us a method of measuring it. We divide the amount of change of position (i.e. the distance covered) by the time it takes for the change to happen. We can say that

units of distance (length)
units of speed = ——; —j~.———————
^r units of time

Compared with every other form of motion with which we are familiar the speed of light appears to be an upper limit of velocity. In a single second light crosses a space equal to eight times the circumference [sa'kAmfargns] of the Earth and in travelling from any visible object on the Earth to the eye of an observer on the Earth, light occupies, however small, but a real interval of time.

We see objects not as they are at the moment we notice them but as they were the smallest fraction of a second before that. From the Moon light takes a little more than a second and a quarter in reaching us. But light occupies more than eight minutes to reach us from the Sun; a longer or shorter interval in travelling to us from Mercury ['maikjuri], Venus. Mars, etc. The information brought by light about the various members of the solar system belongs to different times and it is clear that events of the greatest importance might have happened and we don't know any­thing about them.

If, however, we pass beyond the limits of the solar system, we un­derstand better how different in time are the events presented to us. We may assume that the light of many stars occupies thousands of years in coming to us. That's why we use the so-called astronomical unit (symbol AU) or a still larger unit known as a light-year (symbol It. yr.) while speaking of galaxies ['gaetoksiz]. AU is defined as the mean distance from the Sun to the Earth (1.4964 x 10¹³ cm) while It. yr. is defined as the distance travelled by light in the course of one year and is equal to 9.463 x 10¹⁷ cm.

ЗАДАНИЯ К ТЕКСТУ

• Выпишите из текста английские эквиваленты следующих русских словосочетаний.

раздел механики; явления движения; занимаются (связаны с) яв­лениями движения; полное описание; вовлекало бы; пройденное расстояние; с учетом; имеет дело с; с точки зрения измерения; коли­чество изменения положения за единицу времени; по сравнению с; бесконечно велика; видимый объект; выходим за пределы; солнеч­ная система; среднее расстояние

• Заполните пропуски соответствующими словами.

1. We describe motion from one position to another in terms of the... covered and the... it takes to go from one position to another. 2. Mass per unit volume means mass... by volume. 3. Km/hr is a unit of... in the... system. 4. We define speed as.... 5. Kinematics is the science of... and we define motion as.... 6. The word " per" indicates.... 7. We use AU while speaking about.... 8. We use It. yr. while speaking of.... 9. In a second light crosses a space equal to.... 10. Light covers the distance from the Sun to the Earth in.... 11. Kinematics isn't concerned with.... 12. In kinematics we study.... 13. The branch of mechanics dealing with laws of physics is....

Reading 29B

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