Mountain Views News          Saturday, December 27, 2014

THE WORLD AROUND US

14

Mountain Views-News Saturday, December 27, 2014 


VENUS EXPRESS GOES GENTLY INTO THE NIGHT


The European Space Agency�s Venus Express has 
ended its eight-year mission after far exceeding 
its planned life. The spacecraft exhausted its 
propellant during a series of thruster burns to raise 
its orbit following the low-altitude aerobraking 
earlier this year.

 Since its arrival at Venus in 2006, Venus Express 
had been on an elliptical 24-hour orbit, traveling 
66,000 km above the south pole at its furthest point 
and to within 200 km over the north pole on its 
closest approach, conducting a detailed study of 
the planet and its atmosphere.

 However, after eight years in orbit and with 
propellant for its propulsion system running low, 
Venus Express was tasked in mid-2014 with a 
daring aerobraking campaign, during which it 
dipped progressively lower into the atmosphere on 
its closest approaches to the planet.

 Normally, the spacecraft would perform routine 
thruster burns to ensure that it did not come too 
close to Venus and risk being lost in the atmosphere. 
But this unique adventure was aimed at achieving 
the opposite, namely reducing the altitude and 
allowing an exploration of previously uncharted 
regions of the atmosphere.

 �During its mission at Venus, the spacecraft 
provided a comprehensive study of the planet�s 
ionosphere and atmosphere, and has enabled us 
to draw important conclusions about its surface,� 
says H�kan Svedhem, ESA�s Venus Express project 
scientist.

 Venus has a surface temperature of over 450�C, 
far hotter than a normal kitchen oven, and its 
atmosphere is an extremely dense, choking 
mixture of noxious gases. 

 One highlight from the mission is the tantalizing 
hint that the planet may well be still geologically 
active today. One study found numerous lava flows 
that must have been created no more than 2.5 
million years ago�just yesterday on geological 
timescales�and possibly even much less than that.

 Indeed, measurements of sulfur dioxide in the 
upper atmosphere have shown large variations over 
the course of the mission. Although peculiarities in 
the atmospheric circulation may produce a similar 
result, it is the most convincing argument to date 
of active volcanism.

 Even though the conditions on the surface of 
Venus are extremely inhospitable today, a survey 
of the amount of hydrogen and deuterium in the 
atmosphere suggests that Venus once had a lot 
of water in the atmosphere, which is now mostly 
gone, and possibly even oceans of water like the 
Earth. 

 Studies of the planet�s �super-rotating� 
atmosphere�it whips around the planet in only 
four Earth-days, much faster than the 243 days 
the planet takes to complete one rotation about its 
axis�also turned up some intriguing surprises. 
When studying the winds, by tracking clouds in 
images, average wind speeds were found to have 
increased from roughly 300 km/h to 400 km/h 
over a period of six Earth years.

 At the same time, a separate study found that 
the rotation of the planet had slowed by 6.5 
minutes since NASA�s Magellan measured it before 
completing its five-year mission at Venus 20 years 
ago. However, it remains unknown if there is a 
direct relationship between the increasing wind 
speeds and the slowing rotation.

*******

HOW TO SEE VENUS. Venus is just coming 
back into view in our evening sky, after spending 
several months as a �morning star.� It first became 
visible soon after sunset in mid-December, just 
4 degrees above the southwest horizon, and is 
steadily gaining elevation each night. By January 
6, it will be 9 degrees above the horizon in mid-
twilight. And you can continue to enjoy Venus as 
an �evening star� in the western sky for the next 
several months.

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.


COULD A THIRD-GRADER BUILD 
NOAH�S ARK? By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the author of various books and leads field trips to the local 
mountains. He can be reached at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com or 
Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041]

 

When I was in third grade, the teacher came up with a class project to 
make a model of Noah�s ark, and all the people and animals that would 
go inside. Each student had some assignment, ranging from making 
small people or a pair of monkeys or birds, or planks. I was assigned 
the project of making the ark. 

 She gave us the assignment in late September and asked everyone to 
get to work on it right away. She began to ask for updates in about two 
weeks. Most of the class had made some progress with their parts. I 
didn�t have a clue how to make an ark. I didn�t even know how to get 
started. And due to fear or embarrassment or not knowing what to ask, I never told the teacher that I 
didn�t know what to do. As September turned into October, and October rolled along, I said that I had 
found the cardboard that I could use, which was true. I did have cardboard. I also said that my father 
had some tape, which was true. But in actual fact, I had made no progress whatsoever since I didn�t 
know how to proceed. My teacher accepted my scant updates as if I had reported on real progress, 
and I breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered what I would say the following week. A few students had 
already begun to bring various small cardboard animals into the classroom, setting them on shelves 
throughout the classroom.

 Halloween came and October turned to November. In early November, my third grade teacher 
suddenly died over the weekend. The whole school attended the funeral and Catholic Mass for our 
departed teacher during the following week. There was so much excitement about her death and a new 
teacher that no one ever brought up the ark assignment to the new teacher. 

And then, that year in late November, President Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy was adored by all 
the Catholic nuns, and so we all went to many Masses and said many Rosaries after the assassination. 
Thanksgiving followed, and soon Christmas vacation. One student asked me if I was going to bring in 
the ark, and I just shrugged. No one else in the class seemed particularly interested, and it was never 
brought up again.

 The fact remained that I had never made the ark, and somehow, by a strange quirk of fate, I got out 
of that assignment. I felt glad back then in third grade since I didn�t want to build the ark and I didn�t 
know how to do it. It was one of the first school assignments that I ever worried about. 

Years passed and I doubt if I ever thought about it once.

Then, starting in the late 1970s, I began to commemorate my birthday by doing what is called a 
Birthday Run. I would go to a local high school or college track and run one lap for every year. I would 
mentally review my life during each lap. While running lap number four, I would review from January 
to December whatever I could remember about year four. While running lap number five, the same 
thing, and so on. 

 You�d be surprised to hear the sorts of memories that would come back every year when I did this 
birthday run. If a birthday gathering was planned, I generally shared some of the details of my run 
with the assembled guests.

 Well, for a few years during my Birthday Run, I began to think about that undone assignment of 
building the ark. I thought about what it symbolized First, that I was to be the ark-builder, and second, 
that I did not build that ark. Perhaps I had been reading too much Joseph Campbell, but I saw my role 
as a type of modern Noah, having the potential and the duty to create and build an ark of sorts. To me, 
a symbolic ark meant anything that helped us to survive a major catastrophe -- not necessarily a flood. 
It could be economic collapse, plague, breakdown of society, who knows. Others looked to me to build 
that ark, and I did nothing. That bothered me. I did not like that memory of myself, of having the duty 
to create an ark and not doing it. But perhaps I was thinking about it too much. Perhaps I should not 
dwell on the past, but simply forget about it and move forward.

 However, each year when I did my birthday run, that ark memory gnawed at me. So I settled upon 
what I thought would be a way to balance that past undone. I purchased two punch-out kits from a 
book publisher which enables you to create Noah�s ark and many of the animals. Most of the work was 
already done. You buy the book, punch out the pieces, stick them on heavy backing, and set it all up 
in your classroom or on your pool table. For various reasons, it took me about a year to finally obtain 
those two books. 

 So I finally drove them over the to my old grammar school, ready to knock on the door and present 
them to the third grade teacher. I could already picture her surprise and delight at my story, and I 
considered that she�d probably invite me to her class to retell the story to the students. As I walked up 
to the school gate, I wondered to myself if I would accept the invitation.

However, things had changed. The main gate to the school was now a locked barricade and there was no way to get in. I went around to the yard gate, but that was heavily padlocked. Students in the yard 
did not stop their game to see what I wanted. I went around to another side gate and I was asked if I have a pass or a reservation. 

Across the street from the school was the church parish, so I walked over there to where the nuns and priests lived. Surely they would invite me in to hear my story. A large man opened the door and said 
hello. I explained what I was doing there, and he looked at me for awhile. 

�The nuns are busy and the third grade teacher is not here now,� he informed me. He paused and added, �Did you call first?� Of course, I hadn�t. He offered to take my two punch-out-the pieces Noah�s 
ark books and place them into the mail slot for the third grade teacher. I thought about it and realized all that it took to get me to that spot, and I didn�t want to just take the books back home with me. I 
gave him the two books, he promised to put them into the third grade teacher�s mail slot, and he closed the door.

 It seemed somewhat anticlimactic of an ending, but I felt that I had fulfilled my old obligation to the third grade class. They eventually got two kits for building arks, and even though I never got to tell the 
story to an enraptured third grade, it all felt resolved within me. 

 There must have been a reason why the feeling of needing to complete this old task persisted. Certainly, it impressed upon me the enormity of the task of Noah-ness, and imbued me with a touch of 
humility. And on an even simpler level, I had given my word and had not fulfilled it. Once I passed along the make-the-ark punchout books to the school, I felt that I had finally fulfilled my word.