₦airaland Forum

What are our nearest neighbors like?

In our solar system the three bodies that are nearest to us are our own moon and the planets Venus and Mars. The formation, structure, and surface of the moon are more closely linked with earth. Because these planets are so close to us (in terms of size of the solar system) they have been the subject of many sciences of fiction stories. But the question is what these planets are really like? And do they really have strange life forms inhabiting them?

Venus is closer to the sun than the earth, and orbits at a distance of about 110 million kilometers from the sun. Sometimes Venus comes as close as40million kilometers to earth. It does not seem unlikely, but a year on the planet Venus would be shorter than a day. This occurs because the planet is spinning on its own axis more slowly than it’sorbiting around the sun. In the case of earth, of course, it is the other way round so that there are 3651/4 of our days in a year.

Venus is about the same size and weight with the earth but because it is much closer to the sun and does not have our protecting layer of the gas ozone, it is very much hotter. The surface temperature has been estimated at about 350 degrees Celsius, or more than three times the boiling temperature of water. Because of the extreme heat, because there does not seem to be a breathable atmosphere apart from a dense covering of co2 gas, and because there is little evidence of h2o it would be very surprising if there were any life forms like our own.

Mars orbit around the sun at a distance of about 230 million kilometers and is farther away from it than we are.vew of mars at night sky appears to be red in color. This reddish color seems to be the actual color of the planet’s surface because it is only protected by a thin atmosphere of co2.

The surface of mars is certainly cratered rather like our moon and also appears to have a canal-like scars running across it. It would bevery unlikely that any life as we know could survive there because of the lack of water and free oxygen, and because the temperature may fall low enough during the night to freeze any normal living creature. You can see, then that earth is very lucky to have conditions which will support a network of plant and animal life.

Water or water vapour as it is more scientifically called gets into the air by evaporation. Plants also lose water through their leaves and stems, and this follows the same path into the sky.

Before rain can fall the water vapour must first cool so that it can condense. This means that it turns to water droplets. When you have a bath some of the steam that rises from the hot water forms a thin film of water on any of the cold surfaces in the bathroom such as the mirror or the window. It is little or more complicated than just cooling, however. Water vapour needs to have something to form on so that it can condense into droplets. In the air this is usually the tiny particles ofdust which are ever present. This means, of course, that our industries can affect the rainfall in an area because of the smoke and other substances which usually accompany them.

The clouds which develop from these water droplets are of many different kinds, and not all of them will give rise to rain.

If you have spent a holiday in an area where there are high hills or mountains, it is likely that it will have been cloudy or have rained a lot.This is because the airwhich flows across the hills is forced rapidly upwardlythem, causing it to cools as it expands. And if the air is very moist as it is, for example, when it reaches the lake district of England, the water quickly condenses so that this area will usually have a very high rainfall.

We have seen how the clouds occur, but this does not explain why this water should suddenly fall as rain, or even snow or hail. The main difference between a cloud droplet and a rain drop seems to be size-a cloud droplet is very tiny and floats in the air and a raindrop is larger and heavy enough to fall as it is pulled by gravity. It is not easy to see why the droplets should grow to grow to rain drop size but one reason may be that there are always a fewlarger droplets present which may fall and bump into other droplets to grow still larger, and so on.

SLIDE waxie: Not cool.
No matter wot people say, i'll still maintain those presenters were fools.

thumbs up

Odunnu: Kidneys? Thank God its not liver. Hope he recovers fast.

Oboy....all d organs dey very important o

seanet02: Too much money. Nice one my guys.
Treat the mama well, but no money no mama.
Thats the deal.

Wat does dat mean ?ok if there is no money nkor mama shuld?

y can't dis poster leave judgements to God alone...r u a member of any of their churches?even if u r u don't have to blasphem.using biblical method and God's name in ur text ain't just right at all.on d last day nobody will carry u to heaven or hell..so if d men of God tink dat its d right ting to own a jet leave them alone na!God has d final say.u hear me?