Final test on the surrounding world

2nd grade

1 option

Why does the Earth appear blue from a spaceship?................................................. ..........

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What shape does the Earth have?........................................................ ........................................................ ......

How many hours does it take for the Earth to complete a full revolution around its axis?....................................

Underline the words that name objects of living nature?

Honey fungus, doll, ant, cloud, oak, river, snow, turtle, chamomile, car.

Emphasize the properties of water.

Water dissolves river sand, pure water has no taste, water has a pleasant smell, pure water is colorless, water dissolves salt.

What gas does a green leaf absorb from the air when feeding?................................................. ...............

Choose and underline the names of the trees.

Poplar, pine, gooseberry, linden, tulip, lilac.

Choose and underline the names of leafy plants.

Cedar, rowan, larch, bird cherry, oak.

Select and underline the names of cultivated plants.

Cucumber, nettle, rye, potatoes, oak, garlic, lily of the valley, beets.

Choose and underline the names of inedible mushrooms.

Pale toadstool, russula, butterfly, boletus, gall mushroom, false honey fungus,.

Underline the names of animals that belong to amphibians.

Crocodile, duck, newt, dolphin, frog, mosquito, toad.

Underline the names of the birds.

Ostrich, bat, penguin, jay, bee, silver carp, nuthatch.

Highlight the actions of a person that are harmful to health.

Run, jump, swim. Invent means of transportation.

Invent tools. Sleep for the winter.

Catching midges on the fly. Write letters, compose poems.

How are you related to grandpa? Emphasize.

Son, daughter, sister, grandson, brother, granddaughter.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Final test on the surrounding world.

Option 2

"Promising Primary School"

What is the name of the star closest to Earth?.................................................... .......................

What is the name of the Earth's natural satellite?................................................ ...........................

How many days does it take for the Earth to complete a revolution around the Sun?....................................

Underline the words that name objects of inanimate nature.

Mountain, crane, bumblebee, clover, lake, plate, cloud, snow, glass, house.

Emphasize the properties of air.

The air is white, odorless, conducts heat poorly, transmits sunlight well, and is transparent.

What gas does the plant absorb during respiration?.................................................. ...........................

Underline the names of the bushes.

Rosehip, oak, chamomile, lily of the valley, gooseberry, linden, boletus, lilac.

Underline the names of coniferous plants.

Larch, juniper, poplar, bird cherry, cedar, apple tree.

Underline the names of wild plants.

Wheat, cabbage, plantain, cornflower, linden, sedge, millet.

Underline the names of edible mushrooms.

Satanic mushroom, false chanterelle, camelina, honey fungus, boletus, gall mushroom, russula.

Underline the names of animals that belong to reptiles.

Lizard, ladybug, grasshopper, turtle, toad, crocodile, wild boar, snake.

Underline the names of mammals.

Crested newt, ant, burbot, toad, elephant, mouse, lizard, cat, woodpecker.

Highlight the actions a person takes that help them stay healthy.

Smoking, exercise, playing on the computer for a long time, proper nutrition, constant listening to music, inactivity, playing sports, hardening.

What is unique to humans? Emphasize.

Crawling, swimming, jumping. Invent means of transportation.

Write stories and poems. Sleep for the winter.

Catching midges on the fly. Stock up for the winter.

How are you related to grandma? Emphasize.

Daughter, son, sister, brother, grandson, granddaughter.

2.50: "The descent of the SA from altitudes from 90 to 40 km is detected and accompanied by radar stations".

Remember this radar data.

We will return to them when we discuss what and how the USSR could have monitored the Apollo 50 years ago and why it never did.

Live video

Turn on captions in Russian.

Manned landing of a spacecraft

Introduction

It’s worth mentioning right away that the organization of a manned flight is quite different from unmanned missions, but in any case, all work on dynamic operations in space can be divided into two stages: design and operational, only in the case of manned missions these stages, as a rule, take up significantly more time. This article focuses mainly on the operational part, since work on the ballistic design of the descent is ongoing and includes various studies to optimize various factors affecting the safety and comfort of the crew during landing.

In 40 days

The first rough calculations of the descent are being carried out in order to determine the landing areas. Why is this being done? Currently, regular controlled descent of Russian ships can only be carried out to 13 fixed landing areas located in the Republic of Kazakhstan. This fact imposes a lot of restrictions, primarily related to the need for prior approval of all dynamic operations with our foreign partners. The main difficulties arise when planting in autumn and spring - this is due to agricultural work in the planting areas. This fact must be taken into account, because in addition to ensuring the safety of the crew, it is also necessary to ensure the safety of the local population and the search and rescue service (SRS). In addition to the standard landing areas, there are also landing areas during a ballistic descent, which must also be suitable for landing.

In 10 days

Preliminary calculations for descent trajectories are being refined, taking into account the latest data on the current ISS orbit and the characteristics of the docked spacecraft. The fact is that a fairly long period of time passes from the moment of launch to the descent, and the mass-centering characteristics of the device change; in addition, a large contribution is made by the fact that, together with the cosmonauts, payloads from the station return to Earth, which can significantly change the position center of mass of the descent vehicle. Here it is necessary to explain why this is important: the shape of the Soyuz spacecraft resembles a headlight, i.e. It does not have any aerodynamic controls, but to obtain the required landing accuracy it is necessary to control the trajectory in the atmosphere. For this purpose, the Soyuz has a gas-dynamic control system, but it is not capable of compensating for all deviations from the nominal trajectory, so an extra balancing weight is artificially added to the design of the device, the purpose of which is to shift the center of pressure from the center of mass, which will allow you to control the descent trajectory by turning over in a roll . Updated data on the main and backup schemes is sent to the MSS. Based on these data, all calculated points are flown over and a conclusion is made about the possibility of landing in these areas.

In 1 day

The descent trajectory is being finalized taking into account the latest measurements of the ISS position, as well as the forecast of wind conditions in the main and reserve landing areas. This must be done due to the fact that at an altitude of about 10 km the parachute system opens. By this point in time, the descent control system has already done its job and cannot correct the trajectory in any way. In fact, the device is only affected by wind drift, which cannot be ignored. The figure below shows one of the options for modeling wind drift. As you can see, after inserting the parachute, the trajectory changes greatly. Wind drift can sometimes be up to 80% of the permissible radius of the dispersion circle, so the accuracy of the weather forecast is very important.

On the day of descent:
In addition to the ballistic and search and rescue services, many more units are involved in ensuring the descent of the spacecraft to the ground, such as:

• transport ship management service;
• ISS control service;
• service responsible for crew health;
• telemetry and command services, etc.

Only after a report on the readiness of all services can the flight directors make a decision to carry out the descent according to the planned program.
After this, the transfer hatch is closed and the ship is undocking from the station. A separate service is responsible for undocking. Here it is necessary to calculate in advance the direction of undocking, as well as the impulse that must be applied to the device in order to prevent a collision with the station.

When calculating the descent trajectory, the undocking pattern is also taken into account. After the ship has undocked, there is still some time before the braking engine is turned on. At this time, all equipment is checked, trajectory measurements are taken, and the landing point is specified. This is the last moment when anything else can be clarified. Then the brake motor is turned on. This is one of the most important stages of the descent, so it is constantly monitored. Such measures are necessary in order to understand in case of an emergency which scenario to proceed next. During normal pulse processing, after some time the spacecraft compartments are separated (the descent vehicle is separated from the household and instrument compartments, which then burn up in the atmosphere).

If, upon entering the atmosphere, the descent control system decides that it is not able to ensure the landing of the descent vehicle at the point with the required coordinates, then the ship “breaks down” into a ballistic descent. Since this all happens in plasma (there is no radio communication), it is possible to determine which trajectory the device is moving on only after radio communication is resumed. If a ballistic descent occurs, it is necessary to quickly clarify the intended landing point and transfer it to the search and rescue service. In the case of a standard controlled descent, the ship is still in flight by the PSS specialists, and we can see live the descent of the vehicle by parachute and even, if we’re lucky, the operation of the soft landing engines (as in the figure).

After this, you can congratulate everyone, shout hurray, open champagne, hug, etc. Ballistic work is officially completed only after receiving the GPS coordinates of the landing point. This is necessary for post-flight assessment of the miss, by which we can evaluate the quality of our work.
Photos taken from the site: www.mcc.rsa.ru

Spacecraft landing accuracy

Ultra-precision landings or NASA's "lost technologies"

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I repeat for the umpteenth time that before freely talking about the deepest antiquity, where 100,500 soldiers unrestrainedly made dashing forced marches across arbitrarily chosen terrain, it is useful to practice “on the cats” © “Operation Y”, for example, on events just half a century ago - “ American flights to the moon."

The defenders of NASA went wild about something. And less than a month has passed since the highly promoted blogger Greencat, who turned out to be red, spoke on the topic:

"We were invited to GeekPicnic to talk about space myths. Of course, I took the most popular and popular one: the myth of the lunar conspiracy. In an hour, we examined in detail the most common misconceptions and the most common questions: why the stars are not visible, why the flag is flying, where the lunar soil is hidden, how they managed to lose the films recording the first landing, why F1 rocket engines are not being made, and other questions."

I wrote him a comment:

"Small, Khobotov! To the furnace of refutations “the flag is shaking - there are no stars - the photos are faked”!
Better explain just one thing: how did the Americans, “when returning from the Moon” from the second escape velocity, land with an accuracy of +-5 km, which was still unattainable even from the first escape velocity, from near-Earth orbit?
"NASA's lost technologies" again? G-d-g“I have not received an answer yet, and I doubt that there will be anything sane, this is not giggling and giggling about a flag and a space window.

Let me explain what the ambush is. A.I. Popov in the article "" writes: "According to NASA, the “lunar” Apollos Nos. 8,10-17 splashed down with deviations from the calculated points of 2.5; 2.4; 3; 3.6; 1.8; 1; 1.8; 5.4; and 1.8 km, respectively; on average ± 2 km. That is, the impact circle for the Apollos was supposedly extremely small - 4 km in diameter.

Even now, 40 years later, our proven Soyuzs land ten times less accurately (Fig. 1), although the descent trajectories of Apollo and Soyuz are identical in their physical essence.":

For more details see:

"...modern landing accuracy of the Soyuz is ensured due to what was provided for in 1999 during the design of the improved Soyuz - TMS" reducing the deployment altitude of parachute systems to improve landing accuracy (15–20 km along the radius of the circle of the total scatter of landing points).

From the late 1960s until the 21st century, the landing accuracy of the Soyuz during a normal, standard descent was within the range ± 50-60 km from the calculated point as envisaged in the 1960s.

Naturally, there were also emergency situations, for example, in 1969, the landing of "" with Boris Volynov on board occurred 600 km short of the calculated point.

Before the Soyuz, in the era of Vostok and Voskhod, deviations from the calculated point were even more abrupt.

April 1961 Yu. Gagarin makes 1 orbit around the Earth. Due to a failure in the braking system, Gagarin landed not in the planned area near the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but 1800 km to the west, in the Saratov region.

March 1965 P. Belyaev, A. Leonov 1 day 2 hours 2 minutes the world's first human spacewalk, the automation failed, the landing took place in the snow-covered taiga, 200 km from Perm, far from populated areas. The astronauts spent two days in the taiga until rescuers discovered them (“On the third day they pulled us out of there.”). This happened because the helicopter could not land nearby. The landing site for the helicopter was equipped the next day, 9 km from the place where the astronauts landed. The overnight stay was carried out in a log house built at the landing site. The astronauts and rescuers got to the helicopter on skis."

A direct descent like that of the Soyuz would, due to overloads, be incompatible with the life of the Apollo cosmonauts, because they would have to extinguish the second cosmic speed, and a safer descent using a two-dive scheme gives a spread of hundreds and even thousands of kilometers at the landing point:

That is, if the Apollos had splashed down with unrealistic precision even by today’s standards in a straight single-dive pattern, then the astronauts would either have burned out due to the lack of high-quality ablative protection, or died/been seriously injured from overloads.

But numerous television, film and photography invariably recorded that the Apollo astronauts who descended from the second cosmic speed were not just alive, but very cheerful and lively.

And this despite the fact that the Americans at the same time could not even properly launch a monkey into low Earth orbit, see.

Red Greencat Vitaly Egorov, who so zealously defends the myth “Americans on the Moon”, is a paid propagandist, public relations specialist for the private space company Dauria Aerospace, which is entrenched in the Skolkovo Technopark in Moscow and actually exists on American money (emphasis added) :

"The company was founded in 2011. The Roscosmos license to carry out space activities was received in 2012. Until 2014, it had branches in Germany and the USA. At the beginning of 2015, production activities were practically curtailed everywhere except Russia. The company is engaged in the creation of small spacecraft (satellites) and sale of components for them. Also Dauria Aerospace raised $20 million in investment from venture fund I2bf in 2013. The company sold two of its satellites to the American company at the end of 2015. thereby receiving the first income from your activities."

"In one of his regular “lectures,” Egorov arrogantly flaunted, smiling his usual charming smile, the fact that the American fund “I2BF Holdings Ltd.” Target I2BF-RNC Strategic Resources Fund under the patronage of NASA invested $35 million in the DAURIA AEROSPACE company.

It turns out that Mr. Egorov is not just a subject of the Russian Federation, but a full-fledged foreign resident, whose activities are financed from American funds, for which I congratulate all voluntary Russian sponsors of the BOOMSTARTER crowdfunding, who invested their hard-earned money in a project of a foreign company, which has a very specific ideological character."

Catalog of all journal articles:

Over the years of space exploration, many useless objects have accumulated there. Graduate of MSTU. Bauman, specializing in modeling of space complexes Anna Lozhkina explains the origin of this garbage, where it comes from and why it doesn’t fall on our heads, tells what can be done to maintain the cleanliness of outer space.

What objects orbit our planet?

First of all, this is a technique launched by people.

Remote sensing vehicles and the interplanetary space station (ISS) move in low Earth orbit, at an altitude of 160 to 2000 kilometers.

In a more distant, geostationary orbit, its altitude is approximately 36 thousand kilometers above the surface of the planet, satellites “hover” for direct broadcasting of television programs and various communication systems.

In fact, the satellites move at very high linear and angular speeds, keeping pace with the rotation of the Earth, so each one is above its own point on the planet - as if hanging above it.

In addition, there is various “space debris” in orbit.

Where does garbage come from in space if no one lives there?

Just like on Earth, garbage in space is the work of humans. These are spent stages of launch vehicles, debris from colliding or exploding satellites.

The number of vehicles sent into outer space from 1957 to the present has exceeded 15 thousand. It's already getting crowded in low orbits.

Some equipment is becoming obsolete - some devices run out of fuel, others' equipment breaks down. Such satellites can no longer be controlled, but only tracked.

Soon there will be so many satellites and space debris around the Earth that it will be impossible to launch a new satellite or fly away from Earth on a rocket.

The collision of even small objects moving at orbital speeds at an angle to each other leads to their significant destruction. Thus, chewing gum flying into the ISS orbit can pierce the shell of the station and kill the entire crew.

A similar effect - an increase in the amount of debris in low Earth orbit as a result of collisions of objects - is called Kessler syndrome and could potentially lead in the future to the complete impossibility of using outer space when launching from Earth.

How are things high up there in geostationary orbit? It is also densely populated, places there are expensive and there is even a waiting list. Therefore, as soon as the service life of the device comes to an end, it is removed from the geostationary station, and the next satellite flies to the vacated position.

Where does space debris go?

From low Earth orbit, any large object descends into the atmosphere, where it burns up quickly and completely - not even ashes fall on our heads.

But with small pieces the situation is more complicated. Several organizations in the United States and Russia reliably track only spacecraft and debris larger than 10 cm. Objects with sizes from 1 to 10 cm are almost impossible to count.

From geostationary orbit, satellites that are outdated or have stopped functioning normally are moved further away, to an altitude of about 40 thousand kilometers, to make room for new contenders.

Thus, behind the geostationary station, a burial orbit has appeared, where the “dead” satellites will fly by inertia for hundreds of years.

What happens to spaceships?

The ships on which people went into space return to Earth, where they live out their lives in museums or research centers.

The garbage generated during the life activities of the inhabitants of the international space station will definitely not end up in space. It is carefully assembled, loaded onto a transport ship - the one that brings them everything they need, and sets off towards Earth. On the way back, this ship almost completely burns up in the atmosphere or is sunk in the Pacific Ocean.

Garbage as spacecraft launch costs

A message on the radio or from television screens that “the first stage separation took place as usual” sounds familiar to a modern person. On the way to the planned orbit, the launch vehicle also loses other parts that have become unnecessary.

For 1 kg of launched mass there is at least 5 kg of auxiliary mass. What's happening to them?

The first stage tanks are immediately “caught” on Earth by specially trained people. The second stage and fairings also fall to Earth, but they scatter much further and are more difficult to find.

But the upper stages, which are used during the transition from the reference orbit to the final orbit, remain up there. Over time, they slowly slide down and enter the atmosphere, where they burn up.

Basically, everything turns to dust and dissipates into the atmosphere. Unless very, very large and strong pieces reach us. In 2001, a piece flew from the MIR station and fell into the ocean.

Disposal of spacecraft

It turns out that the methods for disposing of spacecraft are to drown them in the ocean, launch them further away, burn them in the atmosphere... This is a completely waste-free method.

Parts found on Earth by rescuers are recycled or reused.

Unfortunately, not everything can be recycled yet. Hydrazine leaking from a fallen engine will poison the soil and water for a long time.

How does all this dust and fumes affect the air we breathe?

Yes, our air is polluted and cluttered with small particles of ash, dust, and other products of combustion of spacecraft. But not as much as from emissions from earthly cars and factories.

Here's just one example. The total mass of air in the atmosphere is 5X10¹⁵ tons. The mass of the Mir orbital station, the largest spacecraft ever to enter the atmosphere and burnt up in it (2001) is 105 tons. That is, all the droplets and specks of dust remaining from the orbital station are nothing compared to the size of the atmosphere.

Now let's look at industrial emissions. According to Rosstat, the smallest total emissions during the observation period since 1992 occurred in 1999. And it amounted to 18.5 million tons.

That is, over our country alone in one year, 176,190 times more dirt fell into the air than was carried over the entire globe while the Mir was burning in the atmosphere.

What can be done to reduce the amount of debris in space

In recent years, humanity has faced acute problems of maintaining the cleanliness of outer space.

There are several areas in which research is being conducted:

• Development of the microsatellite industry. Box satellites have already been created - cubesats and tabletsats. When they are launched, significant savings are achieved on launch, less fuel is required, and less excess gets into orbit. However, it is still unclear how to catch up with such a lump if something goes wrong.
• Increasing the life expectancy of devices. The first satellites were designed for 5 years, modern satellites - for 15 years.
• Reuse of parts. The biggest breakthrough in this direction is return launch vehicles, which Elon Musk is already working on.

It is also very important to understand which satellites are really necessary and to take a more responsible approach to the choice of launch vehicles.

In the distant future, we hope there will be vacuum cleaners or other devices that will allow cosmetic and even general cleaning of outer space.

You never know what you can come up with, if you think about it, if you set yourself the goal of preserving clean space for future generations.

The end of spaceship earth

Today we are concerned about human-caused global warming, which could significantly change the earth's climate in the coming decades or centuries. And although all the possible catastrophic scenarios of this process are terrifying, the worst of them pales in comparison with what awaits the Earth in just a few billion years...

According to scientists, in 6.5 billion years, during the evolution of the Sun, the Sun will turn from a main sequence star into a “red giant” with a luminosity twice as high as its current one. It will grow to enormous proportions and engulf Mercury, Venus and, probably, the Earth. All forms of life will disappear from our planet long before this time.

All this will happen in an unimaginably large number of years, so we really don't need to worry. However, man, by nature, wants to know what will happen even in such a distant future. There is some inexplicable attraction in the very possibility of imagining the fate (or end) of the world in the future. And in this sense, scientists are “happy” people, because when drawing a picture of the future of our planet, they can rely not only on their imagination.

According to scientists' forecast, in a few billion years the Sun will turn into a red giant and will shine twice as bright as it does now. Life itself will disappear from our planet long before this time

The main thesis we put forward is that the geological past of a planet can, to some extent, provide a model for its future (Ward & Brownlee, 2002). Of course, with the help of this position it is possible to explain only some details of a possible “end of the world” scenario: for example, life on Earth may well end as it began - with single-celled organisms - or at the end of its existence our planet will turn into a hot, waterless celestial body and etc.

One thing is clear: if we want to predict the future of the planet we live on and estimate the time allotted for the existence of the biosphere, we need to learn how to accurately model the past of the Earth from the very moment of its birth (4.6 billion years ago). Our team at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research has developed a computer model that can help accomplish this task.

Planetary thermostat

The climate of our planet is determined by the balance between solar illumination (its value depends on the luminosity of the Sun and the reflectivity of the earth's surface) and the Earth's radiation, i.e., the amount of long-wave thermal radiation from its surface. Most of this radiation is absorbed by natural greenhouse gases, especially water vapor and carbon dioxide, and partly reflected back to Earth. At the same time, the Earth's surface is additionally heated by 33 ° C - this phenomenon is known as natural Greenhouse effect. Without such additional heating, the average temperature on the planet would not be plus 15 ° C, as it is now, but minus 18 ° C, which would make the existence of life on the planet impossible.

The intensity of the natural greenhouse effect depends on the composition of the atmosphere, which has changed significantly since the origin of the Earth. According to geological data, liquid water existed on the planet already 4.3 billion years ago. But if the composition of the atmosphere at that time had been similar to what it is today, the temperature on the earth’s surface would have been below the freezing point of water 2 billion years ago, because the Sun was shining less brightly then. However, in the early stages of Earth's existence, the atmosphere contained relatively large amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, making it warmer than it is now.

Thus, it can be argued that temperatures favorable for life on our planet prevailed at almost all stages of its history. Why did this happen? It turns out that the Earth is “equipped” with a so-called natural thermostat that prevents extreme climate fluctuations. The global carbonate-silicate cycle plays this role: when temperatures rise, an amazing feedback mechanism comes into play, resulting in the removal of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This mechanism functions as follows: in a warm, humid climate, the process of destruction of silicate rocks (they make up approximately 60% of the mass of all known minerals) intensifies. Atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolved in rainwater reacts with calcium contained in calc-silicate rocks and is washed out into the sea as acidic calcium carbonate. There it settles to the bottom in the form of limestone or as part of the calcareous shells of dead marine organisms. Thus, in a chemically bound state, carbon dioxide is retained in bottom sediments for a long time. But not forever.

According to geophysical studies, the earth's crust is a mosaic consisting of rigid plates that, like ice floes on the surface of water, drift independently of each other. When two plates collide, one plate ends up underneath the other, and along with it, lime deposits are plunged into the Earth's mantle, where they undergo pyrolysis under pressure and high temperature. During this process, the calc-silicate rocks are weathered (disintegrated), releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through volcanic activity. This is how the overall balance of this most important component of our biosphere is maintained. But in the future there will be a limit to the operation of such a thermostat, since at any moment the range of changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may not be sufficient to balance the increase in the intensity of radiation from the aging Sun.

The weathering process of calc-silicate rocks is also influenced by biotic factors. Higher plants, algae and lichens that grow directly on rocks secrete acids through their roots, which affect the rocks by loosening their surface. In addition, the increase in carbon dioxide content in the soil occurs directly due to root respiration of plants.

Starvation in a hundred million years?

In 1982, British scientists D. E. Lovelock and M. Whitfield first tried to estimate the time resource of the biosphere using a qualitative model they developed on the basis of the so-called Gaia hypothesis (Greek Gea), which was proposed by Lovelock and L. Margulis eight years ago. years before. According to this hypothesis, the Earth is a kind of superorganism, a dual geosphere-biosphere system, which is capable of responding to external influences on a geological time scale in such a way that conditions for life on the planet remain favorable.

It is possible to compensate for the growing glow of the Sun and maintain a constant temperature of the Earth's surface if the content of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, contained in the atmosphere decreases. At some point, it will drop below the minimum acceptable concentration required by plants to carry out photosynthesis. Lovelock and Whitfield calculated that this would happen within 100 million years, after which all life should die, because its basic form, plants, would disappear.

Temperatures favorable for life prevailed on Earth at almost all stages of its history thanks to a unique natural thermostat, which is the planetary carbonate-silicate cycle

However, in fact, plants are able to adapt to conditions with low carbon dioxide concentrations and high temperatures. There are already examples of adaptation of this kind. As is known, according to the method of fixation of carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, plants are divided into two categories: C 3 -type and C 4 -type plants (they are so named because at the first stage of photosynthesis they form three- and four-carbon products, respectively). Now the first type of plants dominate on Earth (these include grains and potatoes). But since C4 plants (corn, switchgrass, sugar cane, etc.) can live in conditions with lower concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, they will have an advantage in the distant future.
It is likely that the very appearance of the C4 mechanism in unrelated plant groups is a form of adaptation to the decreasing concentration of carbon dioxide over billions of years. The concentration limit of 150 ppm CO 2, on the basis of which Lovelock and Whitfield made calculations, applies to C 3 -type plants, while for C4-type plants this value is only 10 ppm.

In 1992, two American scientists - C. Caldeira and D. E. Kasting - for the first time presented a quantitative model of the future of the Earth, which took into account the following parameters: lack of carbon dioxide, high surface temperature and complete disappearance of water, while as a base The conditions of the model were the presence of C 4 -type plants.

Assuming that volcanoes will erupt as much carbon dioxide as they do now, and the rate of rock destruction will remain unchanged, they calculated that the biosphere will exist for 900 million years. If life does not cease due to lack of carbon dioxide, the rising temperature of the Earth's surface will put an end to it. According to the Caldeira-Casting model, the temperature will rise above 50 °C within 1.5 million years, and then only primitive organisms will be able to exist. In the next 200 million years, the temperature will reach +100 °C - and all forms of life will disappear.

A planet without volcanoes

When our group at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research took on the problem of the longevity of the Earth's biosphere in 2000, we had to take into account a factor that had previously been neglected by researchers. We made an adjustment for the fact that the intensity of tectonic processes, which play an important role in the carbon cycle in nature, depends on the age of the system itself.

The fact is that since the emergence of our planet, its interior has been constantly cooling. As the flow of heat coming from the Earth's mantle decreases, the geodynamic processes that drive this flow slow down. Thus, the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere does not remain unchanged - it will decrease over time. On the other hand, the intensity of weathering, depending on the total area of ​​the continents, also changes over time: during the development of the Earth it increased and will continue to increase. At the same time, the masses of siliceous rocks constantly increase, are exposed to natural factors and are destroyed.

The future belongs to C4-type plants such as sugar cane or corn. They concentrate carbon dioxide (CO 2) in their tissues, even if its content in the environment is very low, due to which they can carry out photosynthesis

Based on both of these factors, we calculated that the period of time for carbon dioxide concentration to drop to 10 ppm - the limit value for C4-type plants - is significantly shorter than Caldeira and Kasting predicted: the entire flora will disappear in 500, at the latest - in 600 million years.

In recent years, our group has developed a dynamic model that takes into account the cyclical processes of carbon transfer from one source (storage) to another, which occur during each period of Earth's history. The model presents the oceans, mantle and atmosphere of the Earth as such carbon stores, as well as the biosphere and organic carbon (kerogen) present in rocks.

In the biosphere, three main forms of life were conventionally distinguished: prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes and higher organisms. Prokaryotes - organisms without a formed cell nucleus - include bacteria, including photosynthetic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), as well as archaebacteria, many of which are adapted to life in extreme environmental conditions. It is known that prokaryotes were the first inhabitants of the Earth.

At a certain stage of evolution, eukaryotes appeared - organisms whose cells have a nucleus and a cytoskeleton. These include not only single-celled organisms, such as amoeba and algae, but also more complex multicellular life forms, such as higher plants, fungi and animals. Each of these three forms of life apparently corresponds to a certain temperature range on the earth's surface in which they are able to exist and reproduce. The higher the organism, from the point of view of evolutionary development, the narrower the temperature range in which it can exist.

Countdown

Approximately 542 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian period, biological evolution entered the “big bang” era. In just 40 million years, a huge number of multicellular life forms arose, a breakthrough in the increase in biomass occurred, and the progenitors of most modern species appeared. Many scientists attribute this “explosion” of life to the fact that the oxygen content in the atmosphere was sufficient to allow energy metabolism to take place.

However, according to our geodynamic model, the early history of the Earth was different. At the beginning of the Cambrian, the surface of the planet cooled so much that the rapid growth of complex multicellular organisms became possible. The appearance of plants and fungi - the first colonists of terrestrial landscapes (Heckman et al., 2001) - in turn, contributed to further cooling of the earth's surface due to increased weathering processes, as a result of which the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was associated with other elements and removed from the atmosphere. Thus, there was a nonlinear feedback between climate and the biosphere; for this reason, the temperature of the planet's surface dropped so quickly that optimal conditions for the existence of higher organisms arose. Despite the fact that our model takes into account only organisms that participate in the process of photosynthesis, it can be used to draw some conclusions regarding animals and humans that depend on photosynthesis not only indirectly: through the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere, but also directly: through food chains - and also because, to a certain extent, their development went in parallel with the development of plants.

Our model clearly demonstrates that the three life forms identified appeared sequentially - one after the other - and then coexisted. Currently, they populate the Earth in approximately equal proportions. The time will come - and they will disappear in the reverse order of their appearance. However, in our opinion, it is unlikely that a large-scale “collapse” of species diversity will be a mirror image of the “Cambrian explosion”. In any case, the presented model does not contain the slightest hint that there will be a sudden extinction of higher organisms in the future. Even a disturbance to the biosphere system, such as a sudden rise in temperature, does not necessarily lead to universal destruction. The system is very reliable and will recover in a short time.

However, higher life forms, especially plants, will eventually disappear, even though our improved model allows them to survive longer than the previous one. The fact is that the process of biogenic weathering gradually weakens, since plant productivity, i.e., the ability to produce biomass, decreases as temperatures rise. At the same time, more carbon dioxide, which they did not use, remains in the atmosphere, so the threshold concentration level for photosynthesis will not be reached earlier than in 1.6 billion years. However, the average temperature of the earth's surface will grow faster and rise to plus 30 °C - a critical value for higher organisms - in 800-900 million years.

Thus, plants and animals will begin to die out not because of a lack of carbon dioxide, but because of the heat. This also applies to prokaryotes, although they are not so sensitive to high temperature and can exist quite happily until the average temperature of the earth's surface reaches 45 ° C above zero, which will happen 300 million years later. However, the death sentence for these organisms will not be the onset of heat (for prokaryotes, the critical temperature is plus 60 ° C), but a decrease in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When it drops to threshold levels in 1.6 billion years, cyanobacteria will no longer be able to photosynthesize - and then the Earth - with the exception of a small number of endangered microorganisms that are extremely well adapted to extreme conditions - will become a “sterile” planet.

End Scenario

These are the results of our calculations. But the stages leading to the disappearance of life on Earth can be presented in more detail. First, due to a decrease in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the level of biomass production will continuously decrease: rich vegetation will become sparse, and under the rays of an unusually bright sun, the surface of the planet will become hot. Gradually, plants will be forced into peculiar shelters (caves, lowlands), but, in the end, these too will turn into uninhabited. The once fertile lands with an abundance of greenery will be swallowed up by a continuous gray-brown desert.

The soils that were formed and existed at the expense of plants will undergo powerful erosion: rapid flows of water will wash them away and carry them into the ocean, leaving behind only bare rocks. The last remaining higher animals that can adapt to extreme living conditions will become increasingly starved as the food chain collapses.

Single-celled organisms have always been the dominant form of life on Earth, despite their tiny size. In the absence of higher organisms, viscous gelatinous formations of microorganisms will cover the rocks with a continuous carpet. But after hundreds of millions of years, thanks to rising temperatures, they too will share the fate of land plants.

The struggle for survival will also break out in the waters of the world's oceans. Algae and other more complex aquatic plants can live only in a relatively thin layer of water near the surface, into which sufficient sunlight penetrates. But the surface water layer will be clouded with a suspension of matter washed into the ocean from the continents, and will heat up very quickly. Only those organisms that can adapt to life at great depths in darkness and under great pressure will survive for some time, feeding on settling organic matter.

An additional factor contributing to the decrease in algae mass will be the depletion of mineral reserves, in particular phosphates and nitrates, which are necessary for their growth. Currently, essential minerals enter the water (carried out to sea by rivers) from decaying land plants and eroding soils, but the time will come when land plants will die out and soils will be washed away.

At some point, the top layer of water in the ocean will warm to such an extent that the remaining eukaryotic algae that survived despite the lack of minerals will die. This will also doom those life forms that directly or indirectly fed on these algae.

To salt deserts and oceans of magma

In about 1.3 billion years, only primitive single-celled prokaryotes will live on the surface of the continents and oceans. The only place where temperatures acceptable for higher organisms will remain will be the ocean depths. Perhaps several species of organisms capable of feeding on bacteria will survive there, but this will give life a final reprieve.

As a result of intense erosion, the relief surfaces of the continents will become completely flat. In about 1.6 billion years, the average temperature on Earth will rise to plus 60-70 ° C, and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and then in the oceans will decrease. Under such conditions (possibly due to chemosynthesis), only a few species of microorganisms that can tolerate extremely high temperatures and the absence of CO 2 or sunlight can survive.

In about 1.3 billion years, only primitive single-celled organisms will live on the surface of the continents and oceans. Thus, Life will be given the last reprieve...

However, soon the shallow and warm oceans, which by that time will occupy a huge area, will begin to evaporate. Air humidity will constantly increase; It should be taken into account that water vapor is a very “effective” greenhouse gas. Intense greenhouse phenomena will continue until the oceans dry up completely, leaving behind giant salt flats. The temperature will already reach approximately 250 °C above zero. Some unique microorganisms might be able to adapt to this kind of hot hell, but not to the lack of water: when the water in the oceans evaporates, life on Earth will disappear.

While the surface of our planet warms up, its interior will continue to cool, as a result of which tectonic activity will begin to weaken and volcanic activity will die out. Eventually, continental “drift” will stop because the ocean floor, which will become too dry and rigid, will not be able to deform and “slide” under the continental plates. Carbon dioxide, still released in small quantities by the mantle, will accumulate in the atmosphere, contributing to an increase in the greenhouse effect created by water vapor. The temperature will begin to rise even faster.

HUNDRED MILLION YEARS FOR HUMANITY
N. L. Dobretsov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Geography Sc., Chairman of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences The forecast of the distant future of our planet, based on the results of a study of a fairly complex and plausible systemic model of the Earth, which was presented by our German colleagues, is perhaps one of the best known to me.
Nevertheless, one must realize that in any case, all such forecasts are still very approximate. For obvious reasons, the models used may not take into account many important factors.
For example, the presented model does not take into account another potential source of carbon - methane, the reserves of which are contained in gas hydrates, a kind of canned gas. But judging by the latest data, these reserves are huge and exceed the volumes of proven reserves of coal, oil and gas combined.
Kerogen, i.e. carbon contained in organic fuel, during oxidation can “eat up” all the free oxygen. This process can either enhance or mitigate the greenhouse effect: it all depends on the pace and “chemistry” of the transformations that will occur.
In the presented model, the previous history of living beings is also quite simplified, concerning the appearance and relationship of different forms of life - prokaryotes, eukaryotes, higher organisms. Of course, in reality the situation is more complex. For example, the decrease in surface temperature indicated in the graph was actually noted in the Vendian, about 700 million years ago, when severe glaciation occurred, and multicellular organisms apparently appeared much earlier.
At the boundary of the Paleozoic, i.e., about 500 million years ago, further evolutionary leaps in the development of higher organisms were observed, expressed in the appearance of the skeleton, new reproductive organs, etc. Nevertheless, all forecasts regarding the disappearance of higher plants and other organisms in future, made on the basis of this system model are quite plausible. But in reality, of course, we are more concerned about forecasts regarding the future of humanity itself. The natural history of people, i.e. hominids, dates back approximately 5-7 million years.
According to the model, humanity can survive for at least another 100 million years if it does not harm itself.
This is a very favorable prognosis.
In general, the results of the study of the systemic model of our planet, although in many ways approximate, lead to a number of thoughts. Of course, they will be of interest to everyone who is not indifferent to the issues of the origin of life, evolution and the future of our biosphere.

In the upper layers of the atmosphere, under the influence of powerful solar radiation, water molecules will break down into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen will “go” into outer space, since Earth’s gravity will not be able to hold it on the Earth’s surface; oxygen will oxidize the iron found in rocks, causing our planet to turn red, like Mars. In 3.5-6 billion years, the Earth may warm up so much that even rocks will begin to melt: when the surface temperature exceeds 1,000 ° C, oceans of magma will form on the planet.

During the transformation of the Sun into a red giant, the radius of our star in about 7.8 billion years will be equal to the radius of the modern orbit of the Earth. Whether it will swallow the Earth, as it previously swallowed Mercury and Venus, remains an open question.

A strong “solar wind” will cause the Sun to lose a significant part of its mass and, accordingly, its gravitational force, therefore, the Earth will be able to move away from it to a distance almost twice its current one. And no one can even imagine what our home planet will look like then...

Guide to Controlling Spaceship Earth Fuller Richard Buckminster

Spaceship Earth

Spaceship Earth

Our little spaceship Earth is only 8,000 miles in diameter and represents only a small portion of the infinite space of the universe. The closest star to us is our energy reservoir ship - the Sun is 92 million miles away. And the neighboring star is a hundred thousand times further away. Light takes approximately 4 years and 4 months from the Sun (our energy source ship) to reach the Earth. This is one example of our flight distances. Our little Spaceship Earth is now moving at 60 thousand miles per hour around the sun and rotating axisymmetrically. If we count by the latitude at which Washington is located, this adds about a thousand miles per hour to our movement. Every minute we simultaneously rotate one hundred miles and orbit one thousand miles. If we were to launch our space rocket capsules at 15 miles per hour, the additional acceleration that the capsules would need to gain to orbit our Space Shuttle Earth would only need to be one-quarter the speed of the Earth itself. Spaceship Earth was so unusually created and designed that, as far as we know, people have been on board it for two million years and still have no idea that they are on a spaceship. In addition, our spacecraft has been so superbly designed that it has all the capabilities on board for the rebirth of life, regardless of various events and entropy, due to which all life systems may lose energy. That is why we receive energy for the biological continuation of life from another spaceship, the Sun.

Our sun moves with us in the Galactic system at such a distance that we can receive the necessary amount of radiation to support life without burning out. The entire structure of spaceship “earth” and its living passengers are so thought out and created that the Van Allen belt (Earth’s radiation belt), the existence of which until yesterday we did not even suspect, is capable of filtering radiation from the Sun and other stars. The Van Allen Belt is so strong that if it were missing, any radiation would reach the Earth's surface in such a high concentration that it would kill us. Spaceship Earth is built in such a way that we can safely use the energy received from any other stars. Part of the ship is made so that biological life (vegetation on land and algae in the ocean) can be maintained through photosynthesis, consuming solar energy in the required quantities.

But we cannot use all plants as food. Actually, we can only eat a small part of all vegetation. We cannot eat, for example, tree bark or grass leaves. But there are many animals on the planet that can easily feed on this. We consume energy meant for us through milk and meat from animals. Animals eat plants, but we do not allow ourselves to consume the many fruits, seeds and petals of plants that exist on the planet. However, thanks to genetics, we have learned to grow all the plant foods that are suitable for us.

We were also given intelligence and intuition, thanks to which we were able to discover genes, RBC, DNA and other fundamental elements through which our life system is controlled. All this, together with chemical elements and nuclear energy, is part of the unique Spaceship Earth, its equipment, passengers and internal support systems. As we will see later, it is paradoxical, but strategically understandable, why until today we have misused, abused and polluted this outstanding chemical, energy system in order to then successfully revive all types of life on it.

What I find particularly interesting is the fact that our spaceship is a mechanical vehicle, just like a car. If you have a car, you understand that you need to fill it with gasoline or gas, pour water into the radiator and generally monitor its condition. You actually begin to understand the meaning of the thermodynamic device. You know that you must maintain your device in proper working condition, otherwise it will break down and stop working. Until recently, we did not perceive our spaceship Earth as a mechanism that would work properly only if properly maintained.

Today, one of the most important facts about Spaceship Earth is the lack of instructions for its operation. It seems significant to me that our ship did not come with instructions on how to successfully operate it. Considering how much attention was paid to the creation of all the details of our ship, it is no coincidence that it was not included with it. The lack of instructions pushes us to realize that there are two types of red berries - red berries that we can eat and red berries that can kill us. So, due to lack of instruction, we were forced to use intelligence, which is our main advantage; and design scientific experiments and correctly interpret experimental discoveries. Due to the lack of manual guidance, we have learned to anticipate the consequences of an increasing number of alternative means of survival and physical as well as metaphysical growth.

It is obvious that any organism, as soon as it is born, is helpless. Human children remain in a state of helplessness for quite a long time compared to newborns of other living organisms. Apparently, this was implied in the invention called “man” - that he needed help during several anthropological phases, and then, when he became more independent, he discovered a number of physical principles and laws and seemingly invisible resources that exist in the universe. All this should have been useful to him in increasing his knowledge of prolonging and maintaining life.

I would say that all the richness that was invented and put into the design of Spaceship Earth was a safety factor. Security allowed man to remain ignorant for a long time, until he had enough experience to form a system of principles capable of maintaining a balance between energy consumption and the environment. The lack of guidance on how to control spaceship Earth and the systems that support life and reproduction on it forced a person with intelligence to recognize his basic and most important abilities. The intellect had to turn to experience. Analysis of knowledge and experience gained in the past allowed a person to realize and formulate basic principles, consisting of both special cases and completely obvious events. The objective application of these general principles in the restructuring of the physical resources of the environment may lead to humanity being able to cope with larger problems throughout the universe.

When you visualize this whole diagram, you can see that a long time ago, a man made his way through the forest (as you and I might have done), trying to find the shortest path in the necessary direction. On his way he encountered fallen trees. He climbed over these fallen crisscrossing trees and suddenly realized that, despite its stability, one of the trees was swaying slightly. One end of this tree lay above the second tree, and the other end lay under the third. Swaying, the man saw the third tree rise. It seemed incredible to him. Then he tried to lift the third tree himself, but he failed. Then the man climbed onto the first tree again, trying to shake it at the same time, and, just as in the first case, the third, larger tree rose again. I am sure that the first person, having done all this, thought that in front of him was a magic tree. He may even have taken it home with him and installed it as his first totem. Most likely, this happened long before man knew that any strong tree could be lifted in this way - this is how one of the basic principles of lever action emerged, based on the generalization of all the successful “special cases” of unexpected discoveries. Once a person learned to generalize the basic laws of physics, he was able to use his intellect effectively.

The moment a person realized that any tree could be used as a lever arm, his intellectual capabilities increased. The individual was freed from prejudice and superstition through intelligence, which increased his ability to survive millions of times. Thanks to the principles on which lever action is based, man has invented gears, pulleys, transistors, etc. In fact, this has made it possible to do more with less effort. This may have been an intellectual advance in the history of human survival, as well as success achieved through a metaphysical perception of the basic principles that can be used by man.

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