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National Geographic : 1936 May
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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE Nov 2o, 1933 Settle efFordne 61.237 feet l1.59 miles 8 665 meters '-cOt. 23.,1934 ^ Mr.&Mrs. J.Piccard S57579 feet Au ust 18,932 19 miles,17550 meters A ./iccar d, ' s552 feet May 27 193 lo-og2mils ¥_ ( A.Piccart* 10~~ -0 76201 meters -- - 5775"fee-t -- g b-sofee- 9.8 miles 15 781 meters April 2, 1934 Nov. 4, 927 e onatt., graS,4247o feet 4572 feet 8.04 miles 9o01 mil es 145oometeps June 4,190 Sept. 16,1932 SJune k, 93 twins, 976 feet 43 166 feet 833 miles 8.- 7 miles I il "FLYING HIGH" INTO THE STRATOSPHERE The diagram shows how cloud forms mark altitudes in the lower atmosphere, and the heights reached by the most important balloon and air plane flights. Shading is used arbitrarily to indi cate density of the atmosphere, greatest near sea level and growing rapidly less upward (p. 693). Nov 11,1935 'Exporer J " Stevens c Anderson. 13.71 miles 72,395 feet--s ------------------- 22,066 meters 22,066 meters July 28, 1934,"Explorer I" Kepner, Stevens, Ander,on, 60 613 feet 1 48 miles 18475 meter 1 13.71 miles above sea level-we were above 96/100ths of the mass of the atmosphere! WHY SCIENTISTS MUST GO ALOFT TO STUDY COSMIC RAYS Radiations observed at the surface of the earth are like bullets that have come through a series of increasingly dense mat tresses. If many bullets with various ener gies are fired at the mattresses, only those with the greatest energies will go through all of them; and when only the lightest mattresses stand as obstructions, the bullets coming through will be most numerous. The history of stratosphere expeditions has been the story of rising through more and more of the atmospheric "mattresses" to a region in which there are more and more of the "bullets" of sunlight and cos mic rays to be observed. The existence of the radiations called cosmic rays was not known until after 1900. Then it was discovered from experiments by several physicists that if gas is shut up in a hollow steel ball, rays of some sort pass through the metal shell of the ball and steal particles (electrons) from some of the gas atoms (that is, cause ionization of the gas). Later it was learned that some of this penetrating radiation was made up of rays from radium in the rocks of the earth's crust. It was found, however, that these ra dium-born rays could be kept from reach ing the interior of the ball by surrounding it with a layer of lead, just as X-ray treat ment rooms are encased in sheets of lead to prevent the outward passage of X-rays. PASS THROUGH LEAD AND STEEL When the ball was sheathed in lead it was observed that numerous rays still penetrated the interior and ionized the gas-rays driven with energies so much greater than radium rays and X-rays that they passed through the lead and the steel as if those solid obstructions had not been there. These are the cosmic rays, now believed to be, for the most part, charged flying par ticles, almost inconceivably small, driven with tremendous energies. They cannot be seen, and are known only by their effects. The cosmic rays pouring in on the earth are of various energies, and it is only the strongest that can register themselves in side steel balls at the earth's surface. All the way down through the atmosphere some of the rays are exhausting themselves 694
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