In 1992, 86-year-old astronomy professor Clyde Tombaugh read with undisguised excitement a letter he received from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This piece of paper turned out to be more significant than any scientific awards. After all, the question asked in it could not be addressed to any other person in the world. NASA asked permission to visit Pluto, the planet Tombo had discovered. This happened back in 1930, when he was a 24-year-old laboratory assistant at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, on the Arizona plateau. Reading the letter, the old astronomer clearly felt that it was not just about one of the planets, but about his planet, which became known to people thanks to his work. The letter was, of course, only a tribute to his scientific discovery. Nevertheless, supporting the game, Tombo agreed, and NASA began designing an automatic station flight to the most distant planet in the solar system.

Discovery of Lab Assistant Tombo

The ninth planet of the solar system was searched for a quarter of a century and was discovered only in 1930. A certain pattern arose - every century one planet is discovered: Uranus was discovered in the 18th century, Neptune in the 19th, and Pluto in the 20th. This time, fate turned out to be favorable to a young man without an astronomical education, who managed to work at the observatory for only a few months. True, these were months of hard work - every night he photographed the sky through a telescope, section by section, repeating the survey at intervals of several days. During the day, he carefully looked through the hundreds of stars on the resulting photographic plates, trying to find a new planet among them. This monstrously monotonous work was successfully completed on the afternoon of February 18, 1930, when 24-year-old laboratory assistant Clyde Tombaugh entered the office of the director of the Lowell Observatory, Westo Slifer, and said: "I think I found your planet X." Many years later, Tombo, who became a world-famous astronomer and university professor, recalled that he was terribly worried and sweat was downright from his palms.

Slipher and other experienced astronomers immediately began to check the find, made from photographs of the night sky. They rushed to the blink comparator that Tombo had been working on for the past few months and began comparing pictures taken by him on different days. This device made it possible to compare two images, alternately observing one or the other. Quickly tossing a mirror shutter with a lever, astronomers, as it were, combined two frames, looking for an image of the planet, jumping due to its movement, against the background of fixed stars. On that day, the slamming of the damper and the clicking of the lever did not subside under the dome of the observatory until late at night. The check went on for a long time, the new planet was discovered on several more photographic plates, some of which were obtained as early as 1915! Finally, on March 13, the official announcement of its opening was made. The date was deliberately chosen - the birthday of Percival Lowell, who founded this observatory on a high plateau in Arizona near the city of Flagstaff. In 1905, Lowell began a systematic search for "Planet X," as he called an unknown planet farther than Neptune. He himself did not live to see it discovered, but his initials - PL became forever associated with it, since the combination of these letters formed an astronomical sign to designate Pluto. For his discovery, Clyde Tombaugh was awarded a medal and a prize of £25 by the Royal Astronomical Society of London in 1931 (in terms of purchasing power, this is now about $1,500). He also received a scholarship from the State of Kansas to study at a local university. Shortly before the discovery of a new planet, Tombo graduated from a rural school in Kansas, and then went to Arizona to work at an observatory. It can be seen that the name Kansas in the local dialect means "Big Sky" for a reason.

unusual orbit

The new planet received its name on May 1, 1930. From a variety of options, astronomers at the Lowell Observatory chose the name of the god of the underworld, proposed by an 11-year-old English girl from Oxford, in which it is as dark as on the most distant of the planets. In Greek and Roman mythology, Pluto is considered the brother of Zeus-Jupiter and Poseidon-Neptune, the son of Kronos-Saturn, so next to the neighboring planets this name turned out to be quite in “its own circle” (and also echoes the initials of Percival Lowell). Subsequently, it turned out that back in 1919, the French astronomer Reynaud proposed to name the ninth planet, which was not yet discovered at that time, Pluto, but by 1930 his proposal had been forgotten. Despite the big name, the newcomer looked like an alien body in the company of giant planets. The size of Pluto was clearly smaller than that of the Earth, and ten times smaller than that of the four large gas-ice planets located, like Pluto, in the outer part of the solar system. Now the diameter of Pluto is determined quite accurately, it is equal to 2,390 km, which is 2/3 of the diameter of the Moon. It is not only the most distant, but also the smallest of the planets. Even among the satellites of other planets, Pluto was only in eighth place after Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, Io, the Moon, Europa and Triton. True, it is 2.5 times larger than Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The surface area of ​​Pluto is 17.9 million km2, which is comparable to the territory of Russia. The orbit of Pluto also turned out to be unusual - it is very elongated, so the distance from Pluto to the Sun changes almost twice - from 30 to 50 astronomical units (1 AU is equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun, about 150 million km), then like the other eight planets, the orbits are nearly circular. In addition, Pluto's orbit is located at a significant angle (17°) to the plane of the orbits of the other planets. It turns out that the ninth planet by no means fits into a rather harmonious picture of the rest of the solar system, so they even propose to consider Pluto not a planet, but an asteroid. A day on Pluto is 6.4 times longer than on Earth, and gravity is 15 times less than on Earth. The mass of this tiny planet is 480 times less than the mass of the Earth.

Nitrogen ice landscapes

What distinguishes Pluto from other planets is the most severe cold - its surface is constantly extremely low temperature: from -220 to -240 ° C. Under such conditions, even nitrogen solidifies. If ever a space traveler sets foot on the surface of Pluto, then a landscape should open before him, reminiscent of Antarctica during the polar night, illuminated by moonlight. However, on Pluto, such darkness corresponds to the daytime. The sun appears in the sky as a large star with a barely visible disk, 20 million times brighter than Sirius. Here during the day it is 900 times darker than on Earth at a clear noon, nevertheless, 600 times brighter than on a full moon at night, so at noon on Pluto it is much darker than in a cloudy rainy twilight on Earth. The absence of clouds allows you to see thousands of stars in the sky even in the daytime, and the sky itself is always black, since the atmosphere is extremely rarefied. The entire surface of the planet is covered with ice, which is not at all like the earth. This is not water ice that we are used to, but frozen nitrogen, which forms large transparent crystals several centimeters in diameter - a kind of ice fairy kingdom. Inside these crystals, a small amount of methane is frozen in the form of a kind of “solid solution” (it is usually called natural gas - this is the gas that burns in our kitchen together with propane and butane). In some areas of Pluto, water ice and even some ice of carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide) comes to the surface. In general, the surface of the planet has a yellowish-pinkish tint, which is given to it by particles of complex organic compounds settling from the atmosphere, formed from carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen atoms under the influence of sunlight.

The surface of Pluto is very bright and reflects 60% of the sunlight falling on it, so the first estimates of its diameter turned out to be overestimated. At the same time, the strongest differences in brightness are found on Pluto. Here you can find areas darker than coal, and areas whiter than snow. So far, the internal structure of the planet can only be judged by its average density, which is 1.7 g/cm 3 , which is half that of the Moon and three times that of the Earth. This density indicates that Pluto is 1/3 stony rocks and 2/3 water ice. If the material is separated into shells (which is most likely), then Pluto should have a large rocky core 1,600 km in diameter, surrounded by a layer of water ice 400 km thick. On the surface of the planet there is a crust of ices of various chemical compositions, in which the main role is assigned to nitrogen ice. It is possible that between the stone core and its icy shell there is a layer of liquid water - a deep ocean, similar to those most likely to be found on Jupiter's three large moons - Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Gas veil of the planet

The atmosphere around Pluto was discovered relatively recently - in 1988, when the planet, in the process of its movement, closed one of the distant stars and blocked the light coming from it. Atmospheric pressure on Pluto is negligible - 0.3 pascals, which is three hundred thousand times less than on Earth. However, even in such a rarefied atmosphere, winds can blow, smoke can form, and chemical reactions can occur. It is possible that there is also an ionosphere - a layer of electrically charged particles in the upper part of the atmosphere. It is assumed that the gaseous envelope of Pluto consists of nitrogen with an admixture of methane and carbon monoxide, since ices of these substances have been detected on the surface of the planet through spectroscopic observations. The weak gravitational field of the tiny planet is not able to hold the atmosphere, and it constantly escapes into space, and new molecules, evaporating from the icy surface, come to the place of the departed molecules. Thus, the atmosphere of Pluto resembles a comet, which "runs away" from the comet's nucleus. This does not happen on any of the planets, at least on such a significant scale as on Pluto, where the atmosphere, in fact, is constantly updated.

It is very cold on Pluto, the average temperature there is -230°C. It is much colder on the night side of the planet than on the day side, so atmospheric gas there cools and condenses on the surface in the form of frost. The biggest changes in Pluto's atmosphere occur when the seasons change. An increase in the temperature of nitrogen ice on the surface of the planet by only two degrees leads to an increase in the mass of the atmosphere by a factor of two. Right now, Pluto is just in the “summer” period: the planet passed the point of its orbit closest to the Sun in 1989 and is still in the “warm” part of the orbit. True, due to the remoteness and large reflection coefficient, Pluto receives 1,500 times less solar heat per unit surface than the Earth. When Pluto moves along its highly elongated orbit to a more distant distance, the heating by the Sun will decrease by almost three times, the temperature will drop significantly and global winter will begin, a seasonal ice age. The gases will condense and fall to the surface of Pluto in the form of ice crystals. The atmosphere will disappear for a long time. This does not happen on any other planet. In 2015, during the New Horizons flyby, the planet will still be warm by Plutonian standards. In the Southern Hemisphere, the polar day will come, and half of the Northern Hemisphere will plunge into the darkness of the polar night. Therefore, we can expect that the atmosphere will not freeze out yet and the spacecraft will have something to study not only on the surface of Pluto, but also in its gaseous envelope.

Dear polar nights

Seasonal changes on Pluto occur over very long periods of time. One revolution around the Sun lasts 248 Earth years - such is the year of Pluto. Long on this planet and a day - one rotation around the axis occurs in 6.4 Earth days. Therefore, in a plutonian year there are approximately 14,160 plutonian days. Since the discovery of the planet, according to its calendar, only a third of a year has passed, and according to the earthly account, almost 76 years have come up. Each season on Pluto lasts 62 Earth years. Unlike all planets except Uranus, Pluto's axis of rotation is 60° away from perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, so its motion is like rolling a bun from side to side, while all the planets move like tops, rotating around an axis almost perpendicular to planes of motion. Such a strong inclination of Pluto leads to the fact that the polar night and polar day there are not limited, as on Earth, only to areas near the poles, but extend almost half of each hemisphere - from the pole to the 30th degree of the corresponding latitude. On Earth, this would lead to a shift of the polar circle from the northern fringes of Europe and Asia to Mexico, Florida, the Canary Islands and Egypt, and the polar night would cover all of Europe, Russia, Japan, the USA and Canada.

Charon's clues

For the first 48 years after the discovery of Pluto, very little was learned about it. Even its size and mass were determined very uncertainly - the diameter data differed by a factor of five. The situation changed dramatically in 1978, when it was discovered that Pluto has a moon. It was discovered by astronomer James Christie while observing at the US Naval Observatory Station in Flagstaff, the same city where Pluto itself was discovered in 1930. For the "companion" of the ninth planet, Christie suggested the name Charon - in Greek mythology they called the carrier who delivers the souls of the dead across the river flowing around the underworld of Pluto. With the discovery of the satellite, the data needed to accurately calculate the mass of Pluto appeared.

The satellite has a diameter of 1,205 km, and its density is 1.7 g/cm 3 - exactly the same as that of Pluto. If you place Charon and Pluto side by side, then their joint diameter will be almost the same as the diameter of the Moon. Charon has no atmosphere. The satellite has a bluish color, which differs sharply from the yellowish Pluto. Features of the reflected light spectrum lead to the conclusion that Charon is covered with water ice, and not with methane-nitrogen ice, like Pluto. In general, Charon, based on its density, should consist of 1/3 of rock and 2/3 of water ice. These components can be distributed in two ways: in the form of a fairly homogeneous mixture (a ball of rock-ice "porridge" covered with a thin ice crust) or in the form of separate shells (a stone core 800 km in diameter, surrounded by a layer of ice 200 km thick). The mass of Charon is 1/5 of the mass of Pluto, which is unique - no other planet has a satellite with such a large relative mass. Pluto and Charon are even called a double planet, the masses of the components of which are comparable in size.

Full synchronization

The distance from Charon to the planet is small - 19,600 km, so an imaginary space traveler would see a giant satellite from the surface of Pluto, occupying 7 times more space than the Moon in the earth's sky. And from Charon, it will seem that Pluto, hanging over the horizon, is about to collapse onto its satellite - after all, Pluto in the sky above Charon is 14 times larger in diameter than the Moon in our sky. However, you can admire such pictures only from one hemisphere - both on Pluto and on its satellite. The fact is that these two celestial objects are in full gravitational resonance - Charon is always located in the plane of Pluto's equator and makes one revolution around the planet in 6.4 Earth days, exactly the same time as Pluto around its axis. Therefore, Charon is visible only from one hemisphere of Pluto, and he himself, too, is always turned to the planet by one hemisphere and is constantly located at the same point in the sky, without moving anywhere. Our Moon also always faces the Earth with only one side, but unlike Charon, it moves across the sky: it appears from behind the horizon, and then sets behind it. From a point on the equator of Pluto, located strictly under Charon, the satellite is visible at the zenith and gradually descends to the horizon, as the observer leaves for the hemisphere, deprived of the opportunity to see Charon, and from the poles it is always visible at the very horizon. During the Plutonian day, the picture in the sky changes little - it is constantly black, in contrast to the surface of the planet, which is a little lighter during the day due to the mean sunlight. The most variable detail in the sky of Pluto is Charon, which is illuminated from different sides during the Pluto day, taking on the appearance of either a full moon or a crescent. This variability resembles the phases of our moon, with the only difference being that the "moon" above Pluto never leaves its place. All of the above also applies to the view of Pluto from the surface of Charon: the planet constantly looms at the same point in the sky above Charon and is facing him with only one hemisphere. The meridian passing through the center of this hemisphere is taken as the "Greenwich pluton" - the zero meridian, from which longitude is measured. From the opposite hemisphere of Pluto, its satellite is never visible, just as it is impossible to see Pluto itself from the farthest hemisphere of Charon.

Lilliputian satellites

A major astronomical discovery related to Pluto occurred at the end of 2005, when the New Horizons automatic station was already at the cosmodrome, waiting for a launch to this planet. On October 31, the International Astronomical Union posted on the Internet a message about the discovery made by a group of American astronomers who discovered two new satellites around Pluto at once. In anticipation of the flight to Pluto, the participants in the upcoming studies carefully analyzed all the images of this planet taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which is in orbit around the Earth. Both Pluto itself and its large satellite Charon look like small dots on them, however, scientists managed to recognize in one of the pictures taken back in May 2005, two very tiny dim dots that were neither stars nor any of asteroids of the trans-Neptunian belt. What was the joy of the researchers when they found another picture taken three days after the first, where these points were already in a different location. The nature of their movement showed that they move around Pluto, each at its own distance. During the subsequent revision of older photographs, another one was found, taken in 2002, which confirmed the find. True, in the old image, these satellites are visible as very faint spots. In order to make sure that the discovered objects are really satellites of Pluto, it is planned to conduct a series of observations using the Hubble telescope in February 2006, specifically dedicated to these tiny satellites. According to current data, they have a diameter of 110 to 160 km and are located at distances of 50 and 65 thousand km from the planet - much further than Charon. As a result of this discovery, Pluto once again showed its uniqueness, becoming the only trans-Neptunian object to have more than one satellite. It is possible that the matter will not end with this trinity, since the New Horizons station program provides for the search for even smaller satellites of Pluto - with a diameter of up to 1 km.

On the edge of the ecumene

Pluto is located 40 times farther from Earth than the Sun. This is the only planet to which no space station has yet been directed. Preparations for a flight to Pluto began back in 1989, but one after another, five programs were canceled by NASA in the very early stages, when even a sketch of the spacecraft had not yet been developed. Finally, in 2001, they finally stopped at the next project and brought it to implementation. The automatic station New Horizons ("New Horizons") should go to Pluto in mid-January 2006. Its name well reflects the objectives of the flight: to explore the least explored region on the outskirts of the solar system, where the most distant planet is located. It is also planned to study three satellites of Pluto - large Charon and a couple of small, just discovered and so far unnamed, as well as several very small objects located even further than Pluto - in the outer asteroid belt (Kuiper belt). The station looks like a flat triangular box measuring 3x3x2 m, to one of the sides of which is attached a dish antenna with a diameter of 2.1 meters. Sending a radio signal to Earth from a distance of 5 billion km will be carried out by a transmitter with a power of 200 watts, that is, only 100 times more than that of a cell phone. Sent at the speed of light, radio waves will reach the Earth only after four and a half hours. To imagine how far away Pluto is, remember that the light from the Sun reaches our planet in just 8 minutes. The radio signals coming from the New Horizons station to Earth will be very weak, and for their reception they will use three highly sensitive parabolic antennas - huge "plates" with a diameter of 70 meters each, located in the USA (California), Spain and Australia. The points of deep space communication are located evenly on the surface of the Earth, and this will provide round-the-clock radio communication with the station.

The launch of the New Horizons automatic station from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome in the US state of Florida is scheduled for January-February 2006. Back in August 2005, the Atlas-V launch vehicle was delivered there from the factory in Denver by the AN-124-100 Ruslan cargo aircraft of the Volga-Dnepr airline, the world leader in the transportation of oversized cargo. When launched in mid-January, the flight path will go in such a way that in about a year, in February 2007, the station will approach the giant planet Jupiter and, under the influence of its gravitational field, will receive an addition to the flight speed. This will help her reach Pluto in 2015. If the launch is postponed to the end of January, then the arrival to Pluto will be postponed by 1-2 years, since the Jupiter flyby will be at a greater distance and the gravitational maneuver will be weaker. With the most unfavorable launch time - in the first half of February - the flight will take place without the help of Jupiter, so the station will be able to get to Pluto only by 2019, or even later. After February 15, it will be pointless to start - the relative position of the Earth and Pluto will change so much that the flight will be impossible.

There are seven scientific instruments on board New Horizons, with the help of which it will be necessary to find out what gases the atmosphere of Pluto consists of and what processes take place in it, what geological structures are present on Pluto and Charon, and what is the chemical composition of the surface material of the planet and its satellite, like a stream charged particles ejected by the Sun (solar wind) interacts with Pluto's atmosphere and how fast atmospheric gases escape into space. The devices are designed in such a way that the data they receive is partially duplicated, providing insurance in case of failure of any of them. During the interplanetary flight, it is planned to check all instruments once a year, and then put them back into "sleep" mode. Solar panels, usually used at space stations, are useless in this flight, since in the Pluto region, the energy coming from the Sun will obviously not be enough to operate the station. The devices will receive electricity from a thermoelectric generator operating on a radioactive isotope of plutonium. This chemical element was discovered in the United States in 1940 and named after the planet Pluto, just as its predecessors, uranium and neptunium, received the names of the planets earlier on the periodic table.

Three months after the flyby near Pluto and Charon, the station will begin to transmit the information received, recorded in its electronic memory. Due to the long distance to the Earth, radio transmission will be slow so that weak signals can be distinguished from cosmic and terrestrial noise and deciphered. The transfer process will stretch for nine months. At this time, the station will continue to fly, moving further and further away from the Sun. Its new goal will be to take a close look at some of the newly discovered minor planets in the outer asteroid belt, the so-called Kuiper belt, which lies beyond the orbit of Pluto. This belt consists of many small cosmic bodies - icy asteroids, which are considered the remains of the oldest material that has survived from the formation of the planets of the solar system. A flight through the Kuiper belt could take another three to six years. The data received from the station will be processed at two operational research centers - Tombo in Boulder (Colorado) and Christie in Laurel (Maryland), named after the discoverers of Pluto and its satellite Charon. Naming certificates were presented to the widow of Clyde Tombaugh and astronomer James Christie. The cost of this project, including the launch vehicle and deep space communications services, is approximately $650 million, which corresponds to an amount of 20 cents per US citizen annually for 10 years of the station's flight.

George Burba, candidate of geographical sciences

Saygushkin Ruslan

This material is a research work of a 2nd grade student of MBOU "Lyceum No. 3", a member of the society of NOU students. In his work, Ruslan explores the most mysterious planet in the solar system, Pluto, and tries to unravel all its mysteries.

Download:

Preview:

Introduction……………………………………………..…………………..2

I. History of discovery………………………………………….……..…...3

II. Physical Characteristics………………...……………..…….3 - 4

III. Mysteries of Pluto………………………………………………….4 - 7

1. The first riddle. Dimensions and weight.

2. The second riddle. The internal structure of the planet

3. The third riddle. Surface of Pluto

4. Mystery five. Satellites.

IV. Conclusion………………………………………………………………8

Information resources……………………………………………...…...9

I. INTRODUCTION

Since ancient times, the sky has attracted the eye of man. After all, there are still so many unsolved mysteries in the sky! I love to look at the starry sky. Especially if mom or dad is around. Therefore, when at the lesson on the world around us we began to study the planets, I was very happy. But on the page of the textbook "The World Around" (author A.A. Vakhrushev) I found a contradiction.(Appendix No. 1 ) In the text of the textbook it was written: "Nine planets revolve around our Sun." And next to it, only eight planets were depicted in the drawing of the solar system. Missing Pluto. The teacher suggested that I sort out this contradiction on my own. It turned out that Pluto is the most mysterious planet in the solar system. I thought that the mysteries of Pluto would be of interest not only to me, but also to many other inquisitive children. I decided to solve them.

Before doing the work, I set myself goal : explore the mysteries associated with the history of the discovery and exploration of Pluto.

To achieve this goal, you need to do the following tasks :

1. find and study material on the discovery and exploration of Pluto;
2. unravel the mysteries associated with the history of the discovery and exploration of Pluto;
3. find answers to them at the level of modern knowledge.

II. HISTORY OF OPENING

As early as the beginning of the 19th century, English scientists suggested that there was another planet in the solar system. The existence of Pluto was predicted by an American astronomerPercival Lovell. Scientists threw all their efforts into the search for the ninth planet and gave it the name "Planet X". But scientists were able to prove the existence of a celestial body only 90 years later.(Appendix No. 2) American scientist Clyde Tombaugh took pictures of the night sky for a whole year. He worked 14 hours a day and managed to prove that planet X exists. Clyde was born into a poor family. When he was 12 years old, he first looked at the moon through a telescope. And from that moment began his passion for astronomy. When Clyde graduated from high school, his classmates wrote in the book of graduates the prophetic phrase: "He will open a new world." He could not study further. The parents didn't have money. But he decided to study astronomy himself and made a telescope on his own.

After the discovery of a new planet, the question became: what to call it? Offers began to arrive from all over the world. But all scientists voted for the proposal of the little girl Venetia Burney.(Appendix No. 3) Venice was interested not only in astronomy, but also in mythology. She decided that this name is very suitable for such a dark and cold world, since Pluto in Greek mythology is the god of the underworld, the god of hell.

III. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLANET

It turns out that Pluto is indeed made up mostly of rock and ice. The ice on the surface of Pluto consists of frozen methane and nitrogen with hydrocarbon impurities.

General information:

1. Macca: 1.3*1022kg. (0.0022 Earth masses)
2. Diameter: 2324 km.
3. Density: 2 g/cm3
4. Temperature: -230oC
5. Day length: 6.4 Earth days
6. Distance from the Sun (average): between 29.65 (minimum) and 49.28 (maximum) (39.4 AU) AU, in a highly elliptical orbit.
7. Orbital period (year): 247.7 years
8. Orbital speed: 4.7 km/s

Sometimes on Pluto it gets warmer to minus 170 degrees, but for most of the year the temperature is minus 230 Celsius. A revolution around the Sun lasts 248 years on Pluto. Another unique property of the planet is that the atmosphere appears there, then suddenly disappears completely.

IV. MYSTERIES OF PLUTO

Pluto is the only planet that has not yet been reached by terrestrial vehicles. Too difficult mission. In a straight line - 6 billion km. And this is decades of travel in an icy vacuum.

Pluto remains a mysterious object to this day. Pluto, when discovered, had the brilliance of a star of the 15th magnitude. It can be observed only in strong telescopes, and explored only from space. What are the mysteries to store planet X?

1. The first riddle. Dimensions and weight. (Appendix No. 4)

For a long time it was believed that the size and mass of Pluto are close to the earth.

In 1955, it was suggested that the radius of Pluto is 7200 km, the mass is 0.9 of the mass of the Earth. In 1965, scientists' calculations stopped at 0.11 Earth masses. In 1978, the mass of Pluto is already only 0.002 of the mass of the Earth, that is, 6 times less than the mass of the Moon. So gradually Pluto turned into a "dwarf planet"

1. The second riddle. The internal structure of the planet. (Appendix No. 5)

So far, the internal structure of the planet can only be judged by the value of its average density, which is 1.7 g/cm 3 , which is half that of the Moon, and three times that of the Earth. This density indicates that Pluto is 1/3 stony rocks and 2/3 water ice. Scientists only assume that Pluto must have a large rocky core with a diameter of 1,600 km, surrounded by a layer of water ice 400 km thick. On the surface of the planet there is a crust of ice of various chemical compositions. It is assumed that between the stone core and its ice shell there is a layer of liquid water - the deep ocean. But these are only assumptions.

1. The third riddle. The surface of Pluto. (Appendix No. 6)

Knowledge about the surface of Pluto is still only guesswork. Scientists believe that Pluto differs from other planets in the most severe cold - its surface is constantly very low temperature: from -220 to -240 ° C. Under such conditions, even nitrogen solidifies. According to scientists, “if ever a space traveler sets foot on the surface of Pluto, then a landscape should open before him, reminiscent of Antarctica during the polar night, illuminated by moonlight.” It is 900 times darker during the day here than on Earth at a clear noon, but 600 times brighter than on a full moon at night, so at noon on Pluto it is much darker than during a cloudy rainy twilight on Earth. The absence of clouds allows you to see thousands of stars in the sky even in the daytime, and the sky itself is always black, since the atmosphere is extremely rarefied. The entire surface of the planet is covered with ice, which is not at all like the earth. This is not the usual water ice for us, but frozen nitrogen, which forms large transparent crystals several centimeters in diameter - a kind of ice fairy kingdom. In general, the surface of the planet has a yellowish-pinkish hue. The surface of Pluto is very bright and reflects 60% of the sun falling on it. At the same time, the strongest differences in brightness are found on Pluto. Here you can find areas darker than coal, and areas whiter than snow.

1. Mystery four. Atmosphere.The atmosphere around Pluto was discovered as recently as 1988. She is very shattered. The weak gravitational field of the planet of the baby is not able to hold the atmosphere, and it constantly escapes into space, and new molecules, evaporating from the ice surface, come to the place of the departed molecules. Thus, Pluto's atmosphere is constantly renewing itself. This does not happen on any of the planets.

Pluto is now in the "summer" period. And in 2020, an ice age will begin on the planet. The atmosphere will disappear for a long time.

1. Mystery five. Satellites. (Appendix No. 7)

In 1978, Pluto's moon Charon was accidentally discovered. The satellite is blue. It is believed that it consists of rocks and water ice. In May 2005, scientists discovered two tiny, dim dots in images of Pluto that were neither stars nor asteroids. They moved around Pluto, each at a different distance. The joy of the explorers knew no bounds - Pluto has two more moons! But the most interesting was ahead. It turned out that Charon makes one revolution, one of the satellites - exactly two, and the second - three.

1. Mystery six. Pluto status.

Pluto was officially recognized as a planet by the International Astronomical Union in May 1930. Then it was believed that it was much larger in size.

At the end of the 20th century, doubts arose whether it makes sense to classify Pluto as a large planet. Three reasons were given:

1. All of the outer planets are gas giants, but Pluto is not.
2. Pluto is much smaller in mass than any of the planets in the solar system.
3. The orbit of Pluto is very elongated and even crosses the orbit of another planet - Neptune.(Appendix No. 8)

In August 2006, the decision was made to no longer refer to Pluto as a "planet" but as "dwarf planet".

Now, according to the new classification, the solar system will have four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), the same number of giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus) and an unlimited number of dwarf planets.

Scholars are divided on this issue. Many considered this decision unfair. State residentsNew Mexico, for example, they announced that in honor of Clyde Tombaugh (he lived in this state for many years and worked at the university), Pluto will always be considered a planet and since March 13, 2006, “Pluto Planet Day” has been held in the state every year.

Some Russian scientists also do not agree with the deprivation of Pluto's status as a planet.

IV. CONCLUSION

Scientists expected to find a very large planet, but found a tiny ball of a mixture of ice and nitrogen. Pluto is the only planet that satellites from Earth have not yet reached. But soon it will happen. This is what the American interplanetary station "New Horizons" looks like.(Appendix No. 9) She started in 2006. And the closest approach to Pluto will occur on July 14, 2015. I hope that in 3 years people will solve all the mysteries of Planet X. I really hope that scientists will return the status of a planet to Pluto.

INTERNET RESOURCES

1. http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2005/02/15/174632
2. http://itw66.ru/blog/space/541.html
3. http://vvv2010.livejournal.com/599322.html
4. http://www.scilog.ru/viewtopic.php?pid=9735

Preview:

To use the preview of presentations, create a Google account (account) and sign in:

MAIN FEATURES OF SCIENTIFIC STYLE

The purpose of the lesson:

Generalize and deepen knowledge on the topic "The main features of the scientific style";

Lesson objectives:

To consolidate knowledge about the structure of the text;

Checking spelling and punctuation skills, preparation for the GIA; - development of students' speech skills.

Equipment: texts and yova about the Russian language;

video "Our favorite school yard"

I. Immersion in the topic of the lesson.

The teacher reads in fragments the story "Complaint Book"

What made you smile?

What linguistic phenomenon can explain the author's irony?

You are right, the mixing of styles, the unjustified use of words, turns of speech of one style instead of another causes not only a smile, but also chagrin, annoyance. To prevent this from happening to you, let's continue our study of functional styles. Write down the topic of the lesson "The main features of the scientific style"

II. Comparative analysis of texts:

A. Read. Which of the texts is written in a scientific style?

1. … What is language… what is the word for? Language is, no doubt, a form, a body, a shell, thoughts ... From this it is clear that the richer the material, the forms for thought that I acquire for myself for their expression, the happier I will be in life, more accountable both for myself and for others, more understandable to themselves and others, more domineering and victorious; the sooner I will tell myself what I want to say, the deeper I will say it and the deeper I myself will understand what I wanted to say, the stronger and calmer I will be in spirit - and, of course, the smarter I will be<…>It is clear that the more flexible, the richer, the more diverse we master the language in which we have chosen to think, the easier, the more diverse and the richer we will express our thought in it.

2. Language is a complex device that can be considered from different points of view, in accordance with which different units of the language are distinguished. Sounds, words and morphemes, combinations of words and sentences act as heterogeneous elements of the general system of the language, which is often called the "system of systems". The science of language is divided into a number of albeit interconnected, but independent sections, including phonetics, grammar (morphology and syntax), lexicology, word formation, etymology, stylistics, dialectology, etc. Within each of these sections, both descriptive and and the historical study of language.

B. - Underline the terms. Which of them can you give detailed definitions?

Analyze the composition of sentences in this text: do simple or complex predominate?

Analyze the word order in the sentences: how is the movement of thought from the known to the unknown reflected in them, where are the most important words in the sentences?

III. Learning new material.

Read the text on the textbook pages 61-62 as study reading. Play what you read in table format

SCIENTIFIC STYLE

I.Y. Consolidation of acquired knowledge with access to the future (tasks like the USE)

A. Working with a textbook - ex. 137

Read the sentences. In what order should the sentences be arranged to form a text?

Answer: 3 - 2 - 6 - 5 - 4 -1

Y. Homework

Reasoning in accordance with the scientific style "Does the Russian language need protection?"

YI. Find isolated members of the sentence in the text of the exercise, write out the participles and write them down using the morphemic letter technique:

If ever a space traveler sets foot on the surface of Pluto, then a landscape reminiscent of Antarctica during the polar night should open before him.

Frozen; on-reminder-and-yushch-th; having

If necessary, use the table "Isolation of the involved turnover" of the CORy-http://files. school collection. *****/dlrstore/1ee2a-4d83-b717-10e2be9a4efe/_

Write down the following words:

Hypothesis, thesis, monograph, alliteration, verdict, communique, conference, summary, forum, congress, assonance, transcription, assimilation, phoneme, hypotenuse, parallel lines.

Group the words according to "Scope"

Spelling dictation is carried out under the condition of high productivity of students

The new planet received its name on May 1, 1930. From a variety of options, astronomers at the Lowell Observatory chose the name of the god of the underworld, proposed by an 11-year-old English girl from Oxford, in which it is as dark as on the most distant of the planets. In Greek and Roman mythology, Pluto is considered the brother of Zeus-Jupiter and Poseidon-Neptune, the son of Kronos-Saturn, so next to the neighboring planets this name turned out to be quite in “its own circle” (and also echoes the initials of Percival Lowell). Subsequently, it turned out that back in 1919, the French astronomer Reynaud proposed to name the ninth planet, which was not yet discovered at that time, Pluto, but by 1930 his proposal had been forgotten. Despite the big name, the newcomer looked like an alien body in the company of giant planets. The size of Pluto was clearly smaller than that of the Earth, and ten times smaller than that of the four large gas-ice planets located, like Pluto, in the outer part of the solar system. Now the diameter of Pluto is determined quite accurately, it is equal to 2,390 km, which is 2/3 of the diameter of the Moon. It is not only the most distant, but also the smallest of the planets. Even among the satellites of other planets, Pluto was only in eighth place after Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, Io, the Moon, Europa and Triton. True, it is 2.5 times larger than Ceres - the largest object from the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. The surface area of ​​Pluto is 17.9 million km2, which is comparable to the territory of Russia. The orbit of Pluto also turned out to be unusual - it is very elongated, so the distance from Pluto to the Sun changes almost twice - from 30 to 50 astronomical units (1 AU is equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun, about 150 million km), then like the other eight planets, the orbits are nearly circular. In addition, Pluto's orbit is located at a significant angle (17°) to the plane of the orbits of the other planets. It turns out that the ninth planet by no means fits into a rather harmonious picture of the rest of the solar system, so they even propose to consider Pluto not a planet, but an asteroid. A day on Pluto is 6.4 times longer than on Earth, and gravity is 15 times less than on Earth. The mass of this tiny planet is 480 times less than the mass of the Earth.

Nitrogen ice landscapes.

H What distinguishes Pluto from other planets is the strongest cold - its surface is constantly extremely low temperature: from -220 to -240 ° C. Under such conditions, even nitrogen solidifies. If ever a space traveler sets foot on the surface of Pluto, then a landscape should open before him, reminiscent of Antarctica during the polar night, illuminated by moonlight. However, on Pluto, such darkness corresponds to the daytime. The sun appears in the sky as a large star with a barely visible disk, 20 million times brighter than Sirius. Here during the day it is 900 times darker than on Earth at a clear noon, nevertheless, 600 times brighter than on a full moon at night, so at noon on Pluto it is much darker than in a cloudy rainy twilight on Earth. The absence of clouds allows you to see thousands of stars in the sky even in the daytime, and the sky itself is always black, since the atmosphere is extremely rarefied. The entire surface of the planet is covered with ice, which is not at all like the earth. This is not water ice familiar to us, but frozen nitrogen, which forms large transparent crystals several centimeters in diameter - a kind of ice fairy kingdom. Inside these crystals, a small amount of methane is frozen in the form of a kind of “solid solution” (it is usually called natural gas - this is the gas that burns in our kitchen together with propane and butane). In some areas of Pluto, water ice and even some ice of carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide) comes to the surface. In general, the surface of the planet has a yellowish-pinkish tint, which is given to it by particles of complex organic compounds settling from the atmosphere, formed from carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen atoms under the influence of sunlight.

The surface of Pluto is very bright and reflects 60% of the sunlight falling on it, so the first estimates of its diameter turned out to be overestimated. At the same time, the strongest differences in brightness are found on Pluto. Here you can find areas darker than coal, and areas whiter than snow. So far, the internal structure of the planet can only be judged by its average density, which is 1.7 g/cm 3 , which is half that of the Moon and three times that of the Earth. This density indicates that Pluto is 1/3 stony rocks and 2/3 water ice. If the material is separated into shells (which is most likely), then Pluto should have a large rocky core 1,600 km in diameter, surrounded by a layer of water ice 400 km thick. On the surface of the planet there is a crust of ice of various chemical compositions, in which the main role is assigned to nitrogen ice. It is possible that between the stone core and its icy shell there is a layer of liquid water - a deep ocean, similar to those most likely to be found on Jupiter's three large moons - Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

What distinguishes Pluto from other planets is the most severe cold - its surface is constantly extremely low temperature: from -220 to -240 ° C. Under such conditions, even nitrogen solidifies. If ever a space traveler sets foot on the surface of Pluto, then a landscape should open before him, reminiscent of Antarctica during the polar night, illuminated by moonlight. However, on Pluto, such darkness corresponds to the daytime. The sun appears in the sky as a large star with a barely visible disk, 20 million times brighter than Sirius. Here during the day it is 900 times darker than on Earth at a clear noon, nevertheless, 600 times brighter than on a full moon at night, so at noon on Pluto it is much darker than in a cloudy rainy twilight on Earth. The absence of clouds allows you to see thousands of stars in the sky even in the daytime, and the sky itself is always black, since the atmosphere is extremely rarefied. The entire surface of the planet is covered with ice, which is not at all like the earth. This is not water ice familiar to us, but frozen nitrogen, which forms large transparent crystals several centimeters in diameter - a kind of ice fairy kingdom. Inside these crystals, a small amount of methane is frozen in the form of a kind of “solid solution” (it is usually called natural gas - this is the gas that burns in our kitchen together with propane and butane). In some areas of Pluto, water ice and even some ice of carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide) comes to the surface. In general, the surface of the planet has a yellowish-pinkish tint, which is given to it by particles of complex organic compounds settling from the atmosphere, formed from carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen atoms under the influence of sunlight.

The surface of Pluto is very bright and reflects 60% of the sunlight falling on it, so the first estimates of its diameter turned out to be overestimated. At the same time, the strongest differences in brightness are found on Pluto. Here you can find areas darker than coal, and areas whiter than snow. So far, the internal structure of the planet can only be judged by its average density, which is 1.7 g/cm3, which is half that of the Moon and three times that of the Earth. This density indicates that Pluto is 1/3 stony rocks and 2/3 water ice. If the material is separated into shells (which is most likely), then Pluto should have a large rocky core 1,600 km in diameter, surrounded by a layer of water ice 400 km thick. On the surface of the planet there is a crust of ice of various chemical compositions, in which the main role is assigned to nitrogen ice. It is possible that between the stone core and its icy shell there is a layer of liquid water - a deep ocean, similar to those most likely to be found on Jupiter's three large moons - Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.