10 popular misconceptions about space
Forming / / December 19, 2019
Man in Space explodes
A typical example of the misconceptions created by the cinema for entertainment. Well, you know, these bulged eyes and swelling body, then people burst like a soap bubble. Blood and guts in all directions adds an option, permitting the age rating of the film. Getting into open space without a special suit is really killing, but not as spectacular as we see in the movies.
In fact, people without protection can stay in space for about 30 seconds without receiving irreversible health problems.
It will not be nearly instant death. Man dies from suffocation due to lack of oxygen. If you want to see how it actually happens, see "Space Odyssey 2001" by Stanley Kubrick. That's the theme of this film revealed quite realistic.
Venus and Earth are similar
When it comes to space colonization, the candidate for a new home for mankind two Mars or Venus. Venus is called the Earth's sister planet, but only because of the similarity of these planets in size, the force of gravity and composition.
It is unlikely that we would have liked to live on a planet with a thick dense clouds of sulfuric acid, which reflect all sunlight. Atmosphere - nearly pure carbon dioxide, atmospheric pressure to 92 times higher than ours, the surface temperature is 477 degrees Celsius. Not very friendly sister.
The sun burns
In fact, it does not light, and the light. You may think that there is much of a difference, but burning - a chemical reaction, and the light emitted by the sun, is the result of nuclear reactions.
The sun is yellow
Ask your child or even an adult to draw sun. The result is bound to be a yellow circle. And the truth is, you can look at the sun with my own eyes - it is yellow.
In fact, we see the sun in yellow due to the Earth's atmosphere. Here it is possible to argue, pointing to the sun pictures from space, where it is too yellow. Indeed, only such images are often pre-treated to make our star recognizable.
This sun color - white. And to ensure this, it is not necessary to fly into space, but enough to know the temperature. Colder stars shining brown or dark red. With increasing temperature, the color shifts to red. The hottest stars with surface temperatures of 10 thousand degrees Kelvin emit light close to the opposite edge of the visible light spectrum, and give the blue color.
Our sun surface 6 at a temperature of thousands of degrees Kelvin is approximately in the middle of the spectrum and gives the pure white light.
In the summer the Earth is closer to the Sun
It seems logical that the surface temperature of the Earth is the higher the closer it is to the body, which gives the heat, that is to the sun. But the reason for the change of the seasons lies in the fact that the Earth's rotation axis is tilted. When the axis, leaving the northern hemisphere, is inclined towards the sun in the summer hemisphere, and vice versa. That is why it is said that in Australia, winter summer.
When this does not become a mistake the idea that the Earth periodically moves away from the Sun and is approaching it. Earth's orbit is elliptical like most of the other planets. The average distance from the Earth and the Sun is assumed to be 150 million kilometers. However, at the time of closest approach to the planet's star distance is reduced to 147 million kilometers, and at the greatest distance is increased to 152 million kilometers. That is, the Earth is actually closer and farther from the Sun, but this fact does not affect the seasons.
Dark side of the Moon
The moon really is always facing the Earth on one side, because its rotation around its own axis and around the Earth is synchronized. However, this does not mean that the other side it is always in the dark. You've probably seen lunar eclipses. Guess if the party is always turned to us, covers part of the Sun, which falls at this time of the star's light?
Moon always faces the same side toward the Earth, but not to the sun.
Sound in Space
Another myth of cinema, which, fortunately, do not use all the directors. In the same "Odyssey," Kubrick and the sensational "Interstellar" all right. Space - vacuum, that is, there just does not sound waves that propagate through. But this does not mean that the Earth - this is the only place where you can hear the sounds. Wherever there is any atmosphere will sound, but it will seem strange to you. For example, on Mars, the sound will be higher.
Through the asteroid belt can not fly
Hello "Star Wars." There we saw the asteroid belt as a very dense concentration, to pass through which a force of only pilots so cool as Han Solo.
In reality, the other space. He is more. Much more. Disproportionately. And the distance between the objects in the asteroid belt is also much more. In fact, to fly through the belt and the crash even one asteroid, you must be the most unlucky person in the universe.
For example, we can refer to the asteroid belt in our system. The largest object in it - Ceres, a dwarf planet - has a diameter of 950 kilometers. The distance between two objects in the zone varies within hundreds of thousands of kilometers. At this point in the study zone was already sent 11 probes, and they are all safely passed it without any incidents.
The Great Wall is visible from space
Myth appeared before the person has traveled in space. But even before the first flight to the moon someone claimed that the wall will be seen with the natural satellite of the Earth. Well, that's not even a picture from the moon, and with a fairly low orbit. Find a Great Wall of China.
On space-based technologies are spending a quarter of the national budget
Of course, not at us, and in the US, but this is nonsense. Yes, the space program costs in the United States is higher than that of any other country, but neither of which 25% of the question. here link the proposed NASA budget for 2015. This is 0.5% of the US federal budget. The largest funds were invested in the sector during the space race in the sixties, but then costs have reached the average level of only 1% of the federal budget. Record of 4.41% in 1966, but they were very specific times.
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