Space PollutionWritten by K.A.Cassimally
I bet you haven’t ever wondered about pollution of space. Yes, man started polluting space ever since Yuri Gangarin (first man in space) saw Earth in its entirety.Earth is not only orbited by satellites but also by paint particles, pieces of glass and even apparatus used by astronauts in past. These may be small (that’s what we think – I mean maybe there’re not) but note that if ever a spanner were to hit an astronaut’s face shield, latter would break down into fragments. The astronaut would, for his part, go straight up to heavens (or down in hell) and there would also be even more pollutants in space (the shield fragments). Now, for those of you who have ever bothered to reflect upon space pollution, did you know that microscopic fragments also make up space pollutant family? I didn’t until I read an article (link below) from The Guardian newspaper. Anyway, where was I? Yeah, there are even more things out there that are considered as pollutants. I read about particles invisible to human eye and undetectable by Earth radars. Best thing though: they have explosive power of a bullet!!! With more and more satellites, probes and men in space, no doubt that pollution is going to rise. We really have to prevent this. How? Till now, space pollution has not proved to be a major threat to us, inhabitants of earth. So, naturally there does not appear to be any hurry to find a solution. NASA though has put a small probe in a swarm of space debris so as to know them better. But as I just said, nobody is really caring about space pollution right now although I should think that in some fifty years (ok, maybe I’m exaggerating), this may well transform into one of those many threats to life on Earth!
| | Walls can cool themselves!Written by K.A.Cassimally
I always start my column with a question. So why break away with tradition now?Would you believe that walls can cool themselves when they get hot? (Actually that’s 2 questions at beginning of this column!) Many of you, if not all of you will answer a simple and flat, ‘NO’. I would have said so too until I read it with my own eyes (I didn’t actually see these walls with my own eyes, no). The BASF company announced in mid-year that it had managed to do impossible. The experiments were held in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Ok, I know you are all interested in reading how these walls in fact ‘work’ but it’s sort of complicated. Anyway I’ll try my best. Read on! The walls are filled with plastic micro-marbles, which in turn are filled with paraffin wax. Now wax will melt at a temperature higher than 24oC something. Melting, as you might know absorbs energy, which is in this case heat. The paraffin wax in micro-marbles absorbs heat thus cooling their surroundings (they take all heat away).
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