REALITY
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The legendary “Vostok” became the symbol of the XX century, the spaceship
which carried into space the world’s first cosmonaut – Yuri Gagarin.
It happened on April 12, 1961, at 9.07 Moscow time. “Go ahead” Gagarin’s
words are coming over the radio from the spaceship capsule.
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A. Leonov The launching of the “Vostok”
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V. Janibekov Tribute no Yuri Gagarin
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This work is the artist’s tribute to the man who paved the road to
outer space.
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A. Leonov Morning in space
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Alexei Leonov was the first cosmonaut to notice in space and
when tom portray in this drawing the moment when the flaming red solar
disc appears above the horizon. A halo of exceptional beauty, looking
like an ancient Russian head-dress, appeared for a moment over the
Sun. The cosmonaut made the first sketch of this drawing with colored
pencils on a page of his logbook while in flight on board the spaceship
Voskhod-2.
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A human being is “ swimming” above our planet. A. Leonov made this generalized
“self-portrait” shortly after his return from this flight. The cosmonauts
“space walk” lasted for several minutes. This man in the space is flying
over our planet at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour.
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A. Leonov Man in outer space
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A. Leonov Our beautiful planet
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This is how the Earth looks from a space ship. It is beautiful, majestic,
and has an amazingly tender halo along the horizon. At rare moments
one can observe an interesting phenomenon: clearly defined “layers of brightness”.
The Soviet scientist-cosmonaut K.P. Feaktistov was the first to notice
them in 1964 when he flew on board the “Voskhod” space ship. This drawing
is an eye-witness account from space.
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Outer space is infinite in its diversity so the cosmonaut must keep
his eyes open for phenomena yet unknown on Earth. Thus, such a strange
phenomenon was observed by the artist, a cosmonaut himself: a clearly defined
bluish belt stretched along the horizon above the bright halo. Reddish
stars were seen shining through it. What was this?
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A. Leonov The blue belt
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A. Leonov Automatic docking
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For the first time in worlds history in January 1969 a Soviet experimental
satellite space station – a prototype of future larger orbiting stations
– was assembled abd successfully functioned in orbit. It was assembled
as a result of manual-controlled docking of two orbiting space ships.
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“Molniya-1” is a Soviet communication earth satellite looking like
a fantastic petalled flower. Its gigantic “wings” - solar batteries
– are oriented towards the Sun. while pointed parabolic aerial towards
the Earth. The purpose of the unmanned satellite is to relay TV programs
and maintain long-distance telephone cable communications.
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A. Leonov “Molniya-1” is space transmitter
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A. Leonov Homecoming
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Only the last stage of he flight remains – landing. Streams of
fiery plasma engulf the ship. The temperature reaches ten thousand degrees,
hotter than on the surface of the Sun. The ship’s skin begins to
melt. A huge “space droplet” is streaking to Earth.
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FANTASTIC
THE LUNAR WORLD
The Moon is a satellite of the Earth/ Its mean distance from our planet
is 384 000 kilometers? And its diameter is equal to about a quarter at
the Earth’s.
Even looking at the Moon with the naked eye you will notice
that its surface is divided quite distinctly into dark and light areas.
Since the 17th century they have been called “seas” and “continents”
respectively. If you look through the telescope you will see that the Moon
has numerous rings of mountains which from their resemblance to volcanoes
are called “craters” or circuses”.
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A cosmonaut approaching the Moon will see such a view. Lunar craters,
our Earth and a very bright Sun in the star jet black “sky”
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A. Leonov Near the Moon
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A. Sokolov A lunar volcano
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Sometimes mighty forces burst to the surface deep from inside the Moon.
The lava rises high, covering vast areas and forming craters.
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The city is being built on the Moon. Trolleys disappear into a mine:
all the streets, building and laboratories are situated under the Moon’s
surface, which provides reliable protection against sharp temperature fluctuations,
cosmic radiation and falling meteorites.
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A. Leonov, A. Sokolov Building a moon city
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A. Leonov Crater chains
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One of the riddles which the lunar surface still presents is rather
numerous crater chains. They can be observed with telescope from the Earth.
Research data have shown some regularity in the formation of such
crater chains: the area of every posterior crater is about twice
less than the previous crater. The distance between crater center is also
subject to a regularity approaching the law of geometric progression. Is
not a proof of similarity in origin of some craters?
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A two-weeks’ lunar night is past. Morning is breaking in the Sea of
Rains – the first lunar morning in the life of the automatic vehicle. Te
mooncar commanded from the Earth has come to life with day breaking.
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A. Leonov, A. Sokolov Morning of the mooncar
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TO THE PLANETS
The Moon is the celestial body closest to the Earth, and next come
the planet. Together with the Earth they revolve around the Sun which controls
their movement. The Solar System comprises nine large planets, their satellites,
about two thousand small planets — asteroids, comets, and of course the
Sun. In structure, the planets are divided into two distinct groups. The
planets of the Earth type, in the order of their remoteness from the Sun,
are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Pluto, the planet farthest removed
from the Earth and discovered in 1930, can probably be included in this
group, although if has yet been little studied. All these planets have
a solid surface. The presence of an atmosphere around these
planets depends on their on their mass and their diameter.
Mercury, cannot retain a gas cover with its small gravity. Mars has enough
gravity to hold a very rarified atmosphere, while Venus and Earth, most
equal to it in size, manage to hold quite dense and extensive atmospheres
very well. The composition of the atmospheres largely depends on the chemical
processes occurring on the surface of the planet. Oxygen, the most active
gas, is found in a free state only in the atmosphere of the Earth. Much
carbon dioxide has been discovered in the atmosphere of Venus, containing
oxygen in a fixed state.
The second group consists of giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus
and
Neptune. All of them are tens and even hundreds of times larger
than the Earth. The have vast atmosphere containing hydrogen, methane and
ammonia. Whether they have a solid surface beneath the atmospheres remains
unknown.
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A. Sokolov Mars lies ahead
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A spaceship is on its way to reconnaitre Mars. It is approaching a
martian sputnik.
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A small Sun rises, lighting up a desert. Now the giant fantastic organisms
can been seen.
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A. Leonov, A.Sokolov A martian morning
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A .Sokolov Globe-lightning ahead
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Venus us is a troubles some planet: hurricanes, lightings several thousand
kilometers long and frequent globe-lightings. The vehicle has encountered
an enormous globe-lightning.
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The spaceship is flying among the stones of Saturn’s ring. These
are small stones – only about a meter across.
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A. Sokolov Inside Saturn’s ring
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A. Leonov Flight to Mercury, closest to the Sun
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“Of all astronomers, the one is happy who happened to have observed
Mercury”, - scientists used to say. Indeed one can see only with difficulty
this small planet, closest to the Sun, ever hidden in sunlight. All
this accounts for our scanty information on Mercury, obtained through optical
observation. However on the basic on the information available we
can imagine what is to be seen on the surface of Mercury, with the temperature
there
exceeding + 400 C.
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Only 1/2,000,000,000 part of Sun energy reaches the Earth. Every second
the Sun mass decreases by 4 million tons. The core temperature mounts to
+ 13,000,0000 C. In case the Sun surface were that hot, the temperature
on the Earth surface at midday would be
+ 600,0000 C! |
A. Sokolov
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A. Leonov, A. Sokolov On Jupiter Satellite
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Jupiter is the biggest of the Solar system planets. It is 1,300 times
larger in volume than the Earth. All is remarkable about this giant,
differences in motion speeds of dark and light belts in the atmosphere,
the tremendous Red Spot, recurrently changing its brightness very fast
rotation around the axis ( a day and night period lasts there only for
10 hours), exceedingly mighty radioemission. Jupiter has 12 moon-type satellites.
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This is the last planet of the Solar system, the most distant from
the Sun. Its terrible cold did not prevent people from beginning to explore
it. Space rockets from Earth have reached Pluto.
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A. Sokolov On Pluto
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TO UNKNOWN FARAWAY WORLD
Like our own Galaxy, other galaxies situated millions of light
year away from us are also in the main comprised of stars. The process
of star formation in our Galaxy is still going on.
US physicists have come out with sensational news. Incredible as it
seems, they say, we pass through the bodies of aliens without even noticing
that. An astrophysician of the Lomonosov University of Moscow Vladimir
Lipunov also speaks of parallel worlds that exist in other dimensions.
Their matter refuses to interact with matter as we know it, he says, which
is why we are unable to find other civilizations, if they do exist. But
a mysterious "dark substance" has recently been discovered in neighboring
galaxies. Stars and the gaseous halo around them are luminous but that
recently discovered substance is invisible.
A. Leonov Beta Lyra
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The most intriguing astronomical phenomena is associated with
the star known as Beta in the constellation Lyra. The unusual spectrum
of this star and the complex periodic variations of the brilliance
could find no explanation for a long time. Recently it has been found
that the variable star Beta Lyra is binary, it consists of two stars –
the main one and a satellite star revolving around the former. The powerful
tidal forces induce a constant flow of gases from the main star out into
a space. Part of these gases envelop the satellite in a tenuous shell,
but most of the out flowing gases, on account of the complex translatory
motions of the stars, escape into space and form a gigantic gas spiral.
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Among the many thousand of known nebulae and star clusters entered
in special astronomical catalogues, there is a none-loo-extraordinary nebula
catalogued by astronomer Dreuer as ¹ 443.
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A. Leonov The Planet in IC 443 Nebula
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A. Sokolov The “Black hole”
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The “ black hole shown in the picture is a pure figment
of the artist's imagination. However, according
to modern theory, there must exist stars which in the process
of evolution, when the sources of nuclear energy have been exhausted, cool
down, lose stability and start compressing at an exceedingly fast rate
down to a radius of about ten kilometers. A catastrophe sets in, or, in
physicists' jargon, a "gravitational collapse". As a result, the so called
collapsing star is formed. The gravitational field of such a star is so
enormous as to prevent the passage of radiation: the star turns invisible,
"black aperture" as the observer would call it. Around such a star
violent processes are liable to unfold in its powerful gravitational field.
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Who knows, maybe, life flourishes even here? Life can surely exist
in such forms which defy the wildest imagination...
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A. Sokolov On the boiling planet
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A. Sokolov The end of the planet
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One can imagine that near the space that had exploded in the wake of
the gravitational collapse such extraordinary phenomena may occur which
will revolutionize the customary concepts. Nobody knows what men may encounter
in future. It is quite possible that the very notions of space and time
will undergo revaluation.
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The amazing giant stellar system emanates not only visible light
but also radio waves. According to modern data a fantastic amount of energy,
up to 1060 ergs is spent on the on the conception of some radiogalaxies.
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A. Leonov, A. Sokolov “Wisdom of the world”
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A. Sokolov “Youth of the world”
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Lumps of heated plasma are ejected of fantastic speeds of hundred an
thousand of kilometers per second out of the super dense substance concentrated
in the nucleus. The are in constant motion and development. These lumps
are the embryo of stars and stellar systems surrounding the nucleus. The
grandiose process has been going on for millions and billions years.
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The old dream of humanity of capturing the sky came true. A man is striving
for interstellar and intergalactic flies. Our future is new-generation
space ships, investigators of stars, star cities and observatories.
The greatest impulses of space-lovers will be fulfilled.
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Contribution to the exhibition: books – A.Leonov, A.
SokolovStar-Roads, edition “Molodaya gvardia”, 1971,
A.Leonov, A. Sokolov,
The stars are waiting us, edition “Molodaya gvardia”,
1967 |
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