Antarctic.
In due course, global photos will be sent
from Earth to meteorologists on a daily basis.
But it is not only the clouds that matter,...
... through the gaps between them, the earth's surface can
be seen. It is better to look at it from a closer distance.
As did the cosmonauts through the portholes of their spaceships.
Looking straight down, hundreds of
kilometers can be seen at a glance.
The tiniest of details can be discerned and the
haze is no thicker than that seen from an airplane.
Most of the turbid part of the atmosphere
is concentrated near the earth's surface,...
... while slightly higher there's an almost absolute transparency.
Of what practical use is the observation,
photographing and study...
... of these space landscapes?
snow covered summits of mountains look like
distinct, blindingly white fir tree branches.
Water found on the Earth in a frozen state is studied by
hydrologists and glaciologists. It is a difficult thing to do...
... because they have to knownot only the
quality but also the quantity of snow and ice,
... as well as how they are distributed all over the globe.
It needs to be done in order, for instance, to know
how much fresh water there is on the planet.
Nowadays, it is possible to see as much as
whole mountain ranges with a single look.
From the outer space, one can see
the shades of color in sea water,...
... which allows for the definition of borders between
sea streams. Fish shoals migrate along them.
Fishing ships can be directed to these regions.
Orbital spaceships have also created
great opportunities for geologists.
As early as 1968, cosmonaut Beregovoy photographed
the mountains of the Arabian peninsular.
Using his photos, a description of the
geology, morphology and landscape...
...of the entire country was made.
Earlier, such work would have required a
yearlong expedition involving many people.
Watching the Earth from a great height,
geologists will discover many new things.
For instance, look at the strange rings the cosmonauts
sawin the western part of the sahara desert.
The rings are tens of kilometers in diameter.
One can endlessly walk about familiar
places without noticing anything strange.
In some places light color rocks outcrop,...
...in others the rocks are darker
in color, and that's all there is to it.
But from a distance, surprising patterns of
certain natural formations become evident..
Mineral deposits are usually associated
with distinct geological formations.
They are not always clearly identifiable using only aerial
surveys but immediately recognizable from outer space.
They can be seen extending
for thousands of kilometers.
The coloration of the earth's
surface reveals much information.
To analyze the color objectively they
now use a spectrometric method.
The sun light, reflected from some
small part of the earth's surface,
... travels through the prism and
breaks into it's various components.
The photocells measure the intensity of the
reflected light in individual parts of the spectrum.
so the light is now expressed in finite numerical values,...
...which can be radio transmitted
to earth via radio undistorted.
Man receives a spectrogram, i.e. the accurate
color characteristics of the given district.
Reading this document requires
serious preliminary research.
It is one of the sub satellite expeditions.
... of about 200 kilometers.
The cosmonauts receive the spectrogram
of the Earth's surface from space.
Here, under the satellite, terrestrial
spectrograms are being simultaneously received.
They are taken for various soils of the given district and
compared with the spectrograms received from space.
The cosmic ones differ greatly.
The point is that the satellite spectrometer
covers an area of several square kilometers.
such a vast area of earth's surface may be inhomogeneous
and the colors of individual areas appear diffused.
The spectrogram shows a certain average color.