CULTURAL QA 12202307 Q1 If Venus is closer to the Earth, why did we land on the Moon?
KR It is appearing for the second time; Venus is not closer to earth except a perception misleading; closest is Mercury; and Mercury , Venus earth (mars) and Moon are in that elliptical line of order; every one jataka will find thus so where sun mercury Venus will be continuous and neibors; and moon belong to the earth and path of travel is easier. Q3 Are there any real life "lost world" ecosystems? A3 Gary Meaney, passionate fan of all things animal2y My note- 10 Pages answer. Read at leisure time. Very informative answer. KR LAST WORLD means, the destroyed living beings and civilisation; eco system is alterable and destroyed which are no more; so lost world is a misnomer; if it meant kUMARIKANDAM, Gujarat Mathura etc those are different. Except films and books written about the lost world (Jurassic Park) virtually it means all those no more but read about. Eco system is a gain a misnomer as ECO definitions were variables; “eukaryotes” are sediments that may be seen on water, rocks, land, Plants, even dead animal bone etc where one may find even today in your village, if you carefully go around; and so fat 1,7 billion aged samples alone were found. That helps us to study; and western Ghats has yielded many such but the west writes only about the west. As it is the jargon used are misconceptions only KR IRS 71223 NB Again since 6 PM yesterday till 30 minutes back Internet was down and no one were found to set it right 50 minutes back as there was no alternative I have to talk to the top and one below and all was set right in20 minutes; 24 hrs plodders can arrange in 20 minutes all and I am with you KR IRS 7 12 123 ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: 'gopala krishnan' via iyer123 <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2023 at 11:45 Subject: [iyer123] CULTURAL QA 12-2023-07 To: [email protected] <[email protected]>, [email protected] <[email protected]>, [email protected] <[email protected]> CULTURAL QA 12-2023-07 All the BELOW QA are from Quora DIGEST to me on 07-12-2023. QUORA ANSWERS NEED NOT BE 100% CORRECT ANSWERS. Compiled and posted by R. Gopala Krishnan, 80, on 07-12-2023. Q1 If Venus is closer to the Earth, why did we land on the Moon? A1 Ron Brown, Occasional observer of our larger environment. Jul 19 Here is a picture I took of Venus and a crescent Moon (in Nov. 2021). If Venus is closer to Earth than the Moon, perhaps we considered it too small to land on. Well, either that or Venus is much farther away than the Moon. The Moon is about a quarter a million miles away from Earth. Earth is about 93 million miles away from the Sun. Venus is about 67 million miles from the Sun. So its closest distance to Earth is 26 million miles - when it is directly between Earth and the Sun. That is, the closest Venus ever is relative to Earth is about 100 times as far away as the Moon. So that might be the reason. Another is that Venus is a very hostile environment - at 900°F - not a pleasant place to land. Q2 Why do airplanes use headlights at night? What are they trying to see? A2 Rebecca Williams, Experience in Aviation16h Airplanes use headlights at night for two main reasons: to see and to be seen. The lights on airplanes are not the same as the headlights on cars. They are called landing lights, and they are much brighter and more powerful than car headlights. They are also mounted on different parts of the airplane, such as the wings, the fuselage, or the landing gear. The first reason why airplanes use landing lights at night is to see the runway and the surroundings when taking off or landing. Landing lights help pilots avoid obstacles, people, or vehicles on the runway, as well as identify the runway markings and edges. Landing lights are usually turned on when the airplane is below 10,000 feet, which is the altitude where most take offs and landings occur. Landing lights are also useful for flying in low-visibility conditions, such as fog, rain, or snow. The second reason why airplanes use landing lights at night is to be seen by other airplanes and air traffic controllers. Landing lights make airplanes more visible in the dark sky, especially when they are flying close to the airport or in busy airspace. Landing lights help prevent collisions between airplanes, as well as alert controllers of the airplane’s position and intention. Landing lights are also used as a signal to communicate with other pilots or controllers, such as flashing them to indicate a change of course or a request for Q3 Are there any real life "lost world" ecosystems? A3 Gary Meaney, passionate fan of all things animal2y My note- 10 Pages answer. Read at leisure time. Very informative answer. In the northeast of South America, there lies a sprawling geological formation known as the Guiana Shield; an expanse of 1.7 billion year old rock. Long ago, it was a high plateau of sedimentary stone, but most of it has since been eroded away. What remains of this ancient highland are immense blocks of sandstone, flattened at the top. The local Pemon people call them tepuis, meaning “houses of the gods”, and there are hundreds of them. Most tepuis are scattered across Venezuela, but they extend into neighbouring Guyana and Brazil too. Outside of the Andes, these tabletop mountains are among the tallest landforms in South America. You have Mount Roraima, the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World: Auyán-tepui, home to the world’s tallest waterfall: Cerro Autana, a mountain which has a cave cutting right through it, with an opening on either side: Sarisariñama, the surface of which is stippled with massive sinkholes: And many more. Towering high above the forests and savannahs, surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides, tepuis are just as remote and inaccessible as islands in the sea; they are effectively islands in the sky. And, just like marine islands, they have a unique array of wildlife which evolved in a vacuum, cut off from the “mainland”. Before I introduce you to the flora and fauna of these mountains, I’ll go over some of their most interesting physical characteristics which make them such unique environments. Most tepuis are surrounded on all sides by abrupt vertical cliff faces. On top, the terrain varies, but you’ll often find these otherworldly rock formations known as stone forests. Here, the elements have eroded the soluble rock into complex pavements of grooves, pillars and furrows. Sometimes, the gouged-out depressions fill up with water, which is then colonized by colourful algae. Erosion has created many other spectacular features on tepuis. There are innumerable caverns beneath the tabletops, most of them unexplored. As they are formed of quartzite, an incredibly hard mineral, they must have taken hundreds of millions of years to form, and may be the oldest caves on Earth. Some of the chambers are massive (look at the size of the person in the bottom left, below), and one - Abismo Guy Collet - is the deepest cave in all of South America, at a depth of 671 metres. It’s also the world’s deepest quartzite cave. Inside the caverns, there are subterranean lakes and rivers, bizarre rock formations, ancient microbial growths, and wildlife such as blind fish, scorpions, spiders and giant cave crickets. When the rock above these caverns collapse, sinkholes form. There are many sinkholes pockmarking Venezuela’s tepuis, some of them measuring over 300 metres, both in diameter and depth. Cerro Sarisariñama, a specific tepui, is particularly famous for its holes, which are themselves so isolated that there may be species at the bottom endemic to each particular sinkhole. And then of course there are the waterfalls. When rivers spill over the edge of the mesas, they form some of the most spectacular falls on Earth. The most well-known is Angel Falls, the world’s tallest waterfall, plunging nearly a kilometre down to the lowlands below. Other notable examples include Kukenán Falls, which isn’t quite as towering, but still extraordinarily tall at 610 metres: And Kaieteur Falls, the world’s largest single-drop waterfall in terms of total volume: Now, let’s take a look at the wildlife found on these sky islands. In the bare limestone pavements and stone forests, there isn’t much real estate for plant life, but a handful of hardy species eke out an existence in the cracks. Some plant species here are only found on one particular tepui, and about a third of the total flora is endemic to the Guiana Shield. Bromeliads, close relatives of the pineapple, are especially common. The small trees which manage to grow on the rocks, such as Bonnetia roraimae, are quite alien indeed. The reddish colour of their leaves is due to anthocyanin pigments, which help protect them against extremes of weather. The red-brown hue of the vegetation on some tepuis can even be seen from space: Another thing about these rocky areas is that what soil there is very thin and poor in nutrients. As a result, some plants use an alternative source of nutrition - animals. Carnivorous flora is common here, including pitcher plants which drown insects in digestive nectar: And sundews. Their leaves are covered in mucus-coated hairs, and when flies get stuck in the secretion, the leaf rolls up, constricting the prey and slowly digesting it. The conditions atop tepuis are not always so unforgiving, however. Some summits feature shrublands, savannahs, and dense tropical forests. Then there’s the animal inhabitants. Just like the plants, tepui fauna shows high levels of endemism, meaning that many species are found nowhere else. The limited space and scarcity of food mean that there aren’t any very big animals atop the plateaus, but there’s still plenty of fascinating wildlife. Although colonist species from the lowlands probably do come in every now and then, most of the wildlife on the tepuis is likely descended from animals that were there before the surrounding land was eroded away. Their ecosystems guarded by sheer cliffs, said animals evolved in isolation from the rest of the world. Let’s start with the endemic birds. This includes the tepui tinamou, an elusive ground-dwelling bird: The Roraiman nightjar, which is nocturnal: A wide variety of hummingbirds, including the tepui goldenthroat and the peacock coquette (pictured): The tepui parrotlet, which commutes between mountaintops in flocks of several hundred: The greater flowerpiecer, often found on the barren karst rocks, which perforates the base of flowers to access nectar: The colourful tepui brushfinch: And many birds in the group Tyranni, such as the Roraiman antwren: And the striking scarlet-horned manakin, which has a pair of feathery tufts on its head (its “horns”): While the forested foothills of the mesas are rich in mammal fauna, the challenging conditions at the top (and the inaccessibility) mean that there aren’t many mammals here. Those that are are usually quite small. Some endemic examples include Tyler’s mouse-opossum, which I don’t think has ever been photographed (a close relative is shown): McConnell's climbing rat (again, a closely related species is is shown below): Isabelle’s ghost bat (again, not the exact same species in the photo): And the prickly Roraima mouse, which was thought extinct until its rediscovery in 2009. The picture is correct this time. What’s especially interesting about this mouse is that its closest genetic relatives are not found on the lowlands surrounding the tepuis, but way over atop the Brazilian Shield on the other side of the Amazon Basin. This is because its ancestors inhabited a vast South American plateau which has now been mostly eroded. In the remaining Guianan and Brazilian shields, this lineage of mice has survived. There are only two “large" animals which are definitively known to live on top of tepuis: the brown-nosed coati and the southern tamandua, a species of anteater. We have photographic evidence in both cases. There are, however, reports of giant anteaters, pale-throated sloths and even jaguars from the summits. None of these animals have been observed here in modern times, though, and the last claim is especially dubious. Now for the herpetofauna; the reptiles and amphibians. There are many endemic species, including an incredible diversity of frogs, of which 90 percent are endemic, but not too many which really stand out. I will however mention a few, such as the lizard Pantepuisaurus rodriguesi. It's not just an endemic species, but a whole unique genus, found only on tepuis. Its close relative, Riolama inopinata, is also endemic, and has a striking red colouration. There's also the Neblina anole, a fairly large lizard which can extend a brightly coloured dewlap from its throat: The Roraima bush toad, a creature that — when threatened — curls up and rolls away: And the tepui treefrog, which carries its young on its back. The last component of the tepui wildlife left to review is the invertebrate fauna. There are countless endemic beetles, snails, butterflies, and even aquatic insects and crustaceans in underground rivers. The only endemic arthropod species which I find particularly noteworthy are an assortment of freshwater crabs recently discovered in the mountains' forests. So, that's basically everything you need to know about these extraordinary evolutionary laboratories. There is doubtless much left to discover here; many tepuis have long been near-impossible to access even by helicopter, but they're beginning to reveal their secrets. Thank you everyone for reading! I had a lot of fun composing this answer, so hopefully you'll get some enjoyment out of it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iyer123" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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