by Allen Wootton ~

oc daiie Be wad yeh otek Peed
. Terrace Review — Wednesday, June 7, 1989 _ .

_- Early in May the space shuttle Atlantis carried the unmanned

spacecraft “Magellan”

into an orbit around the Earth, From
there Magellan was launched on a 15-month journey to the planet

_ Venus. When Magellan reaches Venus in August of 1990, it will-
_ begin.a systematic radar mapping of the planet’s surface. .
- Already Venus’ surface has been thapped by radar. Mapping

“began from Earth in the early 1960’s,

and this gave the first

‘reliable information about Venus’ size and rotation, and limited
information about surface detail. Later, a whole series of space

"probes orbited Venus and these sent back fairly detailed radar

“pictures of the planet’s surface. The best to date have been
from the Soviet Venera probes 15 and 16, which resolved detail
_. toa limiting size of about 2,000 meters. ae
‘To obtain their radar information, spacecraft send out a radar
beam and the time of arrival of the returning signal.gives infor-
mation regarding the features of the surface below. Magellan's
fadar is quite special. It will give much more detail than previous
_tadar mapping because on each of Magellan’s passes over the
surface, it will produce new information that overlaps with the
information obtained on the previous pass. Successive informa-
“tion will be combined in a computer on Earth to give a picture
_ that will distinguish detail as small as 250 meters across.
__ There are some obvious questions regarding this mapping ex- -
" pedition to Venus. For example, why is the amount of detail in
the radar picture so important? The answer is that the detail gives
scientists important clues regarding the past geological history of
the planet. Even now, for example, it is known that Venus has -
some highland areas similar to the Earth’s continents and an
_”.11,000-meter mountain that is suspected to be of volcanic origin.

"With more detailed maps of the surface, it should be possible to

see if water erosion ever occurred on Venus, or if it has always
been the extremely hot (470°C) place that it is now. As well,
planetary geologists will. be looking for evidence of plate tectonic
_tmovements of Venus’ crust to see if these geologic processes have
shaped Venus’ surface as they have the Earth’s, and they will
"look. for ancient impact craters that may have been produced ear-
“ly in the solar system’s (and Venus’) history. -
_ The best present ‘“‘pictures’’ of ‘Venus produced from radar: im-
~ aging come nowhere near the beautiful photos that spacecraft
_ have produced for Mars, and other members of the solar system.
Why then is this radar maging technique used for Venus? Unlike
Mars or the Moon, Venus has a thick atmosphere — so thick
that it is impossible to see the rocky surface beneath. Radio
waves can penetrate the atmosphere, however, and so give infor~
mation about the surface, though less clearly than light would.
‘As well as obscuring Venus’ surface from us, its thick at-
mosphere makes it very hot. The atmosphere is mostly carbon
* dioxide, with an upper cloud Jayer of sulphuric acid. It is about
90 times as dense as the Earth’s atmosphere, so walking on
Venus’ surface, you would experience a pressure about the’same —
_. as you would at a depth of 900 meters in the Earth’s oceans.
-  It.is this thick atmosphere that makes Venus so hot. Recently -
there has been a lot of news about the warming of the Earth due
to the “greenhouse effect’’ in which gases in the atmosphere pre-
~ vent the loss of infrared radiation and the subsequent warming of

-* our planet. On Venus this effect:is very pronounced; Venus’ at-

- . mosphere retains the Sun’s heat to a very great degree so that
both light and dark side are very warm. 0

I find it remarkable how much we now know about the
planets. Twenty years of spaceprobes have drastically altered our
views of them, and books on the plariets that are.older than that
‘contain many factual errors. I look forward to hearing more
about the progress of Magellan-and learning more about Venus

from it.

You may be able to see Venus very low in the western sky just
after sunset this month. Right now Venus is nearly’ on the op-
posite side of the Sun compared to’Earth, so in a telescope (or
through binoculars) it appears small and round. Towards the end
‘of the year the planet will be closer to us, so it will appear larger
-and, even in binoculars, its crescent. shape will be obvious.

Mars will also be in the western sky at sunset. If you have been
watching this planet over the past few months, you will know
‘that it does-not stand out as it did earlier this year — look for a
slightly orange-colored, star-like object in the west.

The summer solstice occurs on Wednesday, June 21 at 2:53
a.m. this year. At that time, the Sun will appear as far north as

possible in its path.

‘Concours d’art oratoi

Contributed by Joan Norman

The Terrace chapter of Cana-
dian Parents for French held
their third annual’ public speak-
ing competition on Thursday,
May 25 at the Caledonia school
lecture theater. Canadian
Parents for French sponsors
these competitions yearly at the

local, provincial and national

levels.

phis: year's competition hid
18 students from Cassi¢ Hall pre-

senting two- to four-minute
speeches, The winners were:

Grade 4 — Ian Bohle,
L’ univers. .

Grade § — Kimberly Dunbar,
Dans lelac.

Grade 6 — Robyn Harris,
L’immersion francaise.

Grade 7 — Allanna Turcotte,

_La danse ecossaise.

Other competitors were Carl

‘Goodall, Jocelyn Coxford, Erin
- Davies, Kristen Dediluke,

“ er ae
, an ee vo
aot . * noe v .

Phases of Venus as seen from Earth. If —
_ you observe Venus this month it will be -

small and round. Later this year It will be

seen as more and more of a crescent:

phase.

. Tales from the Terrace courthouse |

‘Some days it doesn’t pay... _

A one-time resident of
Terrace appeared before
Judge P.R. Lawrence in Terrace
Provincial Court recently, and
as the evidence began to unfold
it became obvious that he has
had more than his fair share of
‘I should have stayed in bed’’
days in the past few months, —

The first set of charges were
for impaired driving and driving
while his licence was under sus-
pension. It seems that an RCMP

Constable observed a vehicle.

stop at a green light at the
Sande/Greig intersection at
about 3 a.m, a few months ago.
As he watched, the car remained
motionless _— until the light
turned red.

On the red light, the driver

proceeded through the intersec-
tion, zig-zagged to the four-way

stop at Emerson. and Greig,

where he once more came to a

stop and remained motionless

for an unusual length ‘of time.
The driver then drove through
the intersection: and continued
down Greig at a very slow speed.

Thinking he had seen enough,

‘the officer turned on his emer-

gency lights to signal the driver
to pull over to the curb and stop.
The driver, however, continued
happily on his- way. until reach-

ing the entrance of the Co-op

service center, where he pulled
in — driving over the curb in the
process.

The driver didn’t get out of
his vehicle, so the officer walked
to the driver’s side of the vehicle
and began. to open the driver’s
door, This apparently startled
the gentleman — he wasn’t
aware that there was another
vehicle on the road. It also
apparently confused him. Not

only did he have no driver's

licence to show — when asked to
give his name, he gave the wrong

- one. Maybe he just forgot.

The driver was also not aware
that he was being arrested for
driving while under the influ-
ence — possibly the officer was
just making a social visit. Be-

re held

Sholto Scruton, Scott Springer,
Rejean Trombley, David Nor-
man, Hannah Scruton, Kathleen
Gook, Jamie Kerman, Sonya
Sheppard, Bryanna Straker and
Sarah Watts, —

This year’s judges were |
Dominique Coelho (School -
District 88), Lena Lepage.
(Northwest Community College) .

and Luc Gagnon (Terrace Parks |

and Recreation).

cause as the interchange of
words continued,. the driver
asked the officer if he could give

him a lift to the highway so he -
could hitch hike to Terrace. He

must have been quite surprised
when he was told he was already
in Terrace and must have left

‘Kitimat some time ago. This

little escapade cost the driver a
two-year licence suspension, a
$300 fine, and three months in
jail.

The next charge was for theft
under $1,000 which occurred.
and arose from an incident last
February. -It seems that this
same gentleman entered a local
grocery store, Canada Safeway
to be exact, and proceeded to

-{oad a shopping cart with six

bags of “‘dog chow”. He then
wheeled. his.. booty, down the
aisle, into Woolworths, and out
the Woolworths front entrance.

But his. actions did not go
unobserved.. An alert. Safeway
clerk had been watching these
events unfold and started after
the ‘“‘dog™ chow” thief; the
gentleman in question, secing

‘the jig was up, abandoned his

cart and left the parking lot. The
clerk dutifully returned the cart
to the correct location and
placed the merchandise back on
the shelf. But it wasn’t to remain
there long. _

— It seems that the clerk had no
sooner turned his back when the
same gentleman returned. He
proceeded to load a different
shopping cart with six bags of
“dog chow”’, wheeled his booty

~ down the aisle into Woolworths,

and then out the Woolworths

front entrance into the parking.

+?

CATCH THE ACTION

lot, But in his eagerness to
succeed, he failed to notice that
this time too his actions had
been observed. The suspected

thief was nabbed with the goods .
and held -by Safeway staff until |
‘the police arrived. This little’

escapade, after the judge was
given a page-long list of similar
previous convictions, cost the
gentleman another two months
in jail. :

The final set of charges re-
lated to violations of the Federal
Fisheries Act. It seems that our
friend turned.to the outdoors to
repent but may have got in with
the wrong crowd. He and a
friend set up camp at a nice little
spot called Kitselas Channel. All
went well for a few days, until
federal fisheries officers noticed

‘an. unusual amount of motor

vehicle traffic entering and leav-
ing the camp. They also noticed
the clincher — the campers’ fish
net, which was highly illegal. ©
On what was to be their last
departure from their. happy

‘campsite the suspects where

stopped by the officers who

noted five bags containing 28 -

sockeye, five pinks and a lone
chum — a catch that is some-

what over the legal limit. The

officers seized the fish and the
$100 fish net. This cost our now
familiar gentleman’ another
month in jail and his fish net. ~

Six months in jail, a two year —

driving suspension, a $300 fine
or 10 days in default — it’s safe
to say that this gentleman has
had several days in his life when
he should have just stayed in
bed. He should never have left

‘his home.

- Visit the Northern Motor Inn, for
nightly entertainment. Come to
where the ACTION Is. |

$086 Hwy. 16 East
635-6375 |

ja

er,
rma pT ALB i