1.
Saucer
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A saucer is a type of small dishware. The center of the saucer often contains a depression sized to fit a matching cup, this depression is sometimes raised, and antique saucers may omit it altogether. The saucer also provides a convenient place for a damp spoon, some animals, including cats, may also be fed from bowl-shaped saucers. A set of four is typical for a tea set, saucers have very little direct influence on beverage cooling rate, cups typically have low contact area with the saucer, so the heat transfer rate is low. For hot, water based beverages, cooling rate in a cup is typically dominated by evaporation, placing a saucer on top of a cup prevents such evaporative cooling taking place and is thus an effective way of reducing the cooling rate so that the drink remains warmer for longer. The reduction in heat loss due to evaporation is much greater than the increase in heat loss associated with conduction through the saucer. Coaster, used to protect the surface where the user might place a beverage Demitasse
2.
Mombacho
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Mombacho is a stratovolcano in Nicaragua, near the city of Granada. The Mombacho Volcano Nature Reserve is one of 78 protected areas of Nicaragua, Mombacho is not an extinct volcano but the last eruption occurred in 1570. There is no knowledge of earlier eruptions. The highest regions of the volcano are home to a cloud forest and dwarf forest, an increasingly popular tourist attraction, the volcano has fantastic views of Lake Nicaragua and the city of Granada. The volcano also has two hiking trails, a one that circles the main crater, and another, more difficult trail. The more difficult trail is the way to see some features such as the dwarf forest. The trail is almost completely 45° inclines and declines for about two miles, more than 700 different plants are registered around Mombacho, including many species of orchids
3.
Troposphere
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The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earths atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather takes place. It contains approximately 75% of the mass and 99% of the total mass of water vapor. The average depths of the troposphere are 20 km in the tropics,17 km in the mid latitudes, the lowest part of the troposphere, where friction with the Earths surface influences air flow, is the planetary boundary layer. This layer is typically a few hundred meters to 2 km deep depending on the landform, atop the troposphere is the tropopause, which is the border between the troposphere and stratosphere. The tropopause is a layer, where the air temperature ceases to decrease with height. Most of the phenomena we associate with day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere, by volume, dry air contains 78. 09% nitrogen,20. 95% oxygen,0. 93% argon,0. 04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains an amount of water vapor. The chemical composition of the troposphere is essentially uniform, with the exception of water vapor. The source of vapor is at the surface through the processes of evaporation. Thus the proportion of water vapor is normally greatest near the surface, the pressure of the atmosphere is maximum at sea level and decreases with altitude. This is because the atmosphere is nearly in hydrostatic equilibrium. The temperature of the troposphere generally decreases as altitude increases, the rate at which the temperature decreases, − d T / d z, is called the environmental lapse rate. The ELR is nothing more than the difference in temperature between the surface and the tropopause divided by the height. The reason for this difference is that the ground absorbs most of the suns energy. Meanwhile, the radiation of heat at the top of the results in the cooling of that part of the atmosphere. The ELR assumes the atmosphere is still, but as air is heated it becomes buoyant, when a parcel of air rises, it expands, because the pressure is lower at higher altitudes. As the air expands, it pushes the surrounding air outward. As energy transfer to a parcel of air by way of heat is very slow, such a process is called an adiabatic process
4.
Lens (optics)
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A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses. Lenses are made from such as glass or plastic, and are ground. A lens can focus light to form an image, unlike a prism, devices that similarly focus or disperse waves and radiation other than visible light are also called lenses, such as microwave lenses, electron lenses, acoustic lenses, or explosive lenses. The word lens comes from the Latin name of the lentil, the genus of the lentil plant is Lens, and the most commonly eaten species is Lens culinaris. The lentil plant also gives its name to a geometric figure, the variant spelling lense is sometimes seen. While it is listed as a spelling in some dictionaries. The oldest lens artifact is the Nimrud lens, dating back 2700 years to ancient Assyria, david Brewster proposed that it may have been used as a magnifying glass, or as a burning-glass to start fires by concentrating sunlight. Another early reference to magnification dates back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in the 8th century BC, the earliest written records of lenses date to Ancient Greece, with Aristophanes play The Clouds mentioning a burning-glass. Some scholars argue that the evidence indicates that there was widespread use of lenses in antiquity. Such lenses were used by artisans for fine work, and for authenticating seal impressions, both Pliny and Seneca the Younger described the magnifying effect of a glass globe filled with water. The Viking lenses were capable of concentrating enough sunlight to ignite fires, between the 11th and 13th century reading stones were invented. Often used by monks to assist in illuminating manuscripts, these were primitive plano-convex lenses initially made by cutting a sphere in half. As the stones were experimented with, it was understood that shallower lenses magnified more effectively. Lenses came into use in Europe with the invention of spectacles. Spectacle makers created improved types of lenses for the correction of vision based more on knowledge gained from observing the effects of the lenses. With the invention of the telescope and microscope there was a deal of experimentation with lens shapes in the 17th. Opticians tried to construct lenses of varying forms of curvature, wrongly assuming errors arose from defects in the figure of their surfaces
5.
Altocumulus cloud
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However, if the layers become tufted in appearance due to increased airmass instability, then the altocumulus clouds become more purely cumuliform in structure. Like other cumuliform and stratocumuliform clouds, altocumulus signifies convection, Altocumulus is also commonly found between the warm and cold fronts in a depression, although this is often hidden by lower clouds. It is therefore one of three warning clouds often recorded by the industry, the other two being towering cumulus and cumulonimbus. Extensive altocumulus formations, particularly if they take the form of undulatus are often referred to as altocumulus mackerel sky, the stratiformis species is composed of sheets or relatively flat patches of stratocumuliform cloud. The synoptic coding is determined by the predominant variety or occasionally by the mother cloud. Altocumulus lenticularis is a middle cloud which can resemble flying saucers. This is formed by uplift associated with mountains. But usually with at least some grey shading and it is coded CM4 on the SYNOP weather observation. Grey shading is also seen with altocumulus castellanus, a middle cloud that can achieve significant vertical development. It is nevertheless usually classified as middle rather than vertical and is coded CM8, the floccus species is a tufted middle cloud which is also associated with greater instability. It shares the same code CM8, chaotic altocumulus, which is typically poorly defined with multiple species or transitional forms arranged in several layers, is coded CM9. Opacity-based varieties, Altocumulus stratiformis has three opacity-based varieties, Translucidus, perlucidus, and opacus, varieties based on opacity are not commonly associatied with the species lenticularis, castellanus, or floccus. Pattern-based varieties, Radiatus is sometimes seen with the stratformis and castellanus species, Altocumulus stratiformis radiatus of any opacity is coded CM5 if it is increasing in amount. The duplicatus or undulatus varieties are seen with the stratiformis and lenticularis species. Altocumulus stratiformis duplicatus is coded CM7 if it is not overridden by another coding of higher importance, lacunosus is very occasionally associated with altocumulus of the species stratiformis, castellanus, or floccus. Precipitation-based supplementary feature, Altocumulus often produces virga but usually not precipitation that reaches the ground, cloud-based supplementary feature, Mamma caused by localized downdrafts in the cloud layer are occasionally seen with altocumulus. Mutatus mother clouds, Altocumulus can form due to the transformation of cirrocumulus, altostratus, nimbostratus. There may be another rare type of altocumulus, altocumulus undulatus asperatus, but this has not been officially named yet
6.
Unidentified flying object
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An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, UFOs are often identified after their sighting. Sometimes, however, UFOs cannot be identified because of the low quality of evidence related to their sightings, during the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as flying saucers or flying discs. The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit, the Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as An unidentified flying object, a flying saucer. The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe, the acronym UFO was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAFs official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, Obviously the term flying saucer is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape, for this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name, unidentified flying objects. Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include flying flapjack, flying disc, unexplained flying discs, unidentifiable object, the phrase flying saucer had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph, at the time, he claimed he described the objects flying in a saucer-like fashion, leading to newspaper accounts of flying saucers and flying discs. In popular usage, the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft, between 5% and 20% of reported sightings are not explained, and therefore can be classified as unidentified in the strictest sense. The term Ufology is used to describe the efforts of those who study reports. UFOs have become a prevalent theme in culture, and the social phenomena have been the subject of academic research in sociology and psychology. Unexplained aerial observations have been reported throughout history, an example is Halleys Comet, which was recorded first by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC and possibly as early as 467 BC. Such sightings throughout history often were treated as supernatural portents, angels, or other religious omens. On January 25,1878, the Denison Daily News printed an article in which John Martin, Martin, according to the newspaper account, said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer, the first known use of the word saucer in association with a UFO. In April 1897, thousands of people reported seeing airships in various parts of the United States, scores of people even reported talking to the pilots. Thomas Edison was asked his opinion, and said, You can take it from me that it is a pure fake, the largest had an apparent size of about six Suns, he said
7.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
8.
Mountain
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A mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area, usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is steeper than a hill. Mountains are formed through tectonic forces or volcanism and these forces can locally raise the surface of the earth. Mountains erode slowly through the action of rivers, weather conditions, a few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in huge mountain ranges. High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level and these colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains, different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and climate, mountains tend to be used less for agriculture and more for resource extraction and recreation, the highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,850 m above mean sea level. The highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System is Olympus Mons on Mars at 21,171 m, there is no universally accepted definition of a mountain. Elevation, volume, relief, steepness, spacing and continuity have been used as criteria for defining a mountain, whether a landform is called a mountain may depend on local usage. The highest point in San Francisco, California, is called Mount Davidson, notwithstanding its height of 300 m, similarly, Mount Scott outside Lawton, Oklahoma is only 251 m from its base to its highest point. Whittows Dictionary of Physical Geography states Some authorities regard eminences above 600 metres as mountains, in addition, some definitions also include a topographical prominence requirement, typically 100 or 500 feet. For a while, the US defined a mountain as being 1,000 feet or taller, any similar landform lower than this height was considered a hill. However, today, the United States Geological Survey concludes that these terms do not have technical definitions in the US, using these definitions, mountains cover 33% of Eurasia, 19% of South America, 24% of North America, and 14% of Africa. As a whole, 24% of the Earths land mass is mountainous, there are three main types of mountains, volcanic, fold, and block. All three types are formed from plate tectonics, when portions of the Earths crust move, crumple, compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces surface rock upward, creating a landform higher than the surrounding features. The height of the feature makes it either a hill or, if higher and steeper, major mountains tend to occur in long linear arcs, indicating tectonic plate boundaries and activity. Volcanoes are formed when a plate is pushed below another plate, at a depth of around 100 km, melting occurs in rock above the slab, and forms magma that reaches the surface. When the magma reaches the surface, it builds a volcanic mountain. Examples of volcanoes include Mount Fuji in Japan and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the magma does not have to reach the surface in order to create a mountain, magma that solidifies below ground can still form dome mountains, such as Navajo Mountain in the US
9.
Wave cloud
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A wave cloud is a cloud form created by atmospheric internal waves. As an air mass travels through the wave, it undergoes repeated uplift, if there is enough moisture in the atmosphere, clouds will form at the cooled crests of these waves. In the descending part of the wave, those clouds will evaporate due to heating, leading to the characteristic clouded. The cloud base on the side is higher than on the windward side. It is possible that simple convection from mountain summits can also form wave clouds and this occurs as the convection forces a wave or lenticular wave cloud into the more stable air above. Wave clouds are typically mid- to upper-tropospheric ice clouds and they are relatively easy to study, because they are quite consistent. As a result, they are being analyzed to increase our understanding of how these upper-level ice clouds influence the Earths radiation budget, understanding this can improve climate models. The streamlines in these clouds have the steepest slope a few kilometers downwind of the lee slope of a mountain and it is in these regions of highest vertical velocity that sailplanes can reach record-breaking altitudes. Wave cloud structure ranges from smooth and simple, to jumbled phases occurring randomly, often, ice crystals can be found downwind of the waves. Whether this happens depends on the saturation of the air, the composition of the ice is currently an active topic of study. The main mechanism for ice formation is homogeneous nucleation, the ice crystals are mostly small spheroidal and irregular-shaped particles. Ice columns make up less than 1%, and plates are virtually nonexistent, multi-level mountain wave clouds form when the moisture in the air above the mountain is located in distinct layers, and vertical mixing is inhibited
10.
Cloud iridescence
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Cloud iridescence is the occurrence of colors in a cloud similar to those seen in oil films on puddles, located in the general vicinity of the sun or moon. It is a common phenomenon, most often observed in altocumulus, cirrocumulus, lenticular clouds. The colors are usually pastel, but can be very vivid, when occurring near the sun, the effect can be difficult to spot as it is drowned in the suns glare. This may be overcome by blocking the sun with ones hand or hiding it behind a tree or building, other aids are dark glasses, or observing the sky reflected in a convex mirror or in a pool of water. The effect is similar to irisation, Iridescent clouds are a diffraction phenomenon caused by small water droplets or small ice crystals individually scattering light. Larger ice crystals do not produce iridescence, but can cause halos, if parts of clouds contain small water droplets or ice crystals of similar size, their cumulative effect is seen as colors. The cloud must be thin, so that most rays encounter only a single droplet. Iridescence is therefore mostly seen at cloud edges or in semi-transparent clouds, polar stratospheric cloud Iridescent cloud gallery - Atmospheric Optics site On the Cause of Iridescence in Clouds - Scientific American Supplement
11.
Gliding
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The word soaring is also used for the sport. Gliding as a sport began in the 1920s, initially the objective was to increase the duration of flights but soon pilots attempted cross-country flights away from the place of launch. Improvements in aerodynamics and in the understanding of phenomena have allowed greater distances at higher average speeds. Long distances are now flown using any of the sources of rising air, ridge lift, thermals. When conditions are favourable, experienced pilots can now fly hundreds of kilometres before returning to their home airfields, some competitive pilots fly in races around pre-defined courses. These gliding competitions test pilots abilities to make best use of weather conditions as well as their flying skills. Local and national competitions are organized in countries, and there are biennial World Gliding Championships. Techniques to maximize a gliders speed around the task in a competition have been developed, including the optimum speed to fly, navigation using GPS. If the weather deteriorates pilots are unable to complete a cross-country flight. Consequently, they may need to land elsewhere, perhaps in a field, powered-aircraft and winches are the two most common means of launching gliders. These and other methods require assistance and facilities such as airfields, tugs. These are usually provided by gliding clubs who also train new pilots, the development of heavier-than-air flight in the half century between Sir George Cayleys coachman in 1853 and the Wright brothers in 1903 mainly involved gliders. With the active support of the German government, there were 50,000 glider pilots by 1937, the first German gliding competition was held at the Wasserkuppe in 1920, organized by Oskar Ursinus. The best flight lasted two minutes and set a distance record of 2 kilometres. Within ten years, it had become an event in which the achieved durations. In 1931, Gunther Grönhoff flew 272 kilometres on the front of a storm from Munich to Kadaň in Western Czechoslovakia, in the 1930s, gliding spread to many other countries. In the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin gliding was a demonstration sport, a glider, the Olympia, was developed in Germany for the event, but World War II intervened. By 1939 the major gliding records were held by Russians, including a record of 748 kilometres
