Word: kuiper
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...almost nothing about Venus, the earth's nearest (26 million miles) planetary neighbor. Its size, density and period of rotation are all uncertain, and no one has glimpsed its surface, which is always covered with clouds as opaque as marshmallows. In the latest Astrophysical Journal, Astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper of Yerkes Observatory tells how he learned at least a few facts about cloud-wrapped Venus...
Using the 82-in. telescope of McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, Dr. Kuiper took 260 pictures with a filter that excluded all but violet light. Most of them showed six vague light-and-dark bands around the cloudy planet. Dr. Kuiper believes that the bands are connected with the climate zones of Venus, and that therefore they must be parallel to the Venusian equator. The earth has climate zones too, e.g., the cloudy band (the rainy doldrums) around the equator and the clear-aired bands (the dry "horse latitudes") on either side...
...Kuiper is sure that Venus' bands are due to rising or falling currents in its carbon-dioxide atmosphere. His theory is that where the currents are moving upward (as they do in the earth's doldrums), the fine yellow dust that forms the clouds of Venus is carried high. Where the currents move downward, the dust deck is lower, and above it lies a greater thickness of carbon dioxide. The CO2 reflects violet light better than the dust does, and this makes the down-current zones photograph brighter than the others. In light of longer wave length...
...radically new explanation is now offered by one of the nation's top astronomers, Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper of the University of Chicago. After almost a year's moon-gazing through the McDonald Observatory's 82-in. telescope (the world's third-largest), near El Paso, Texas, he decided that the lunar markings were caused by a swarm of satellite planets...
According to Astronomer Kuiper, the moon formed close to the earth some 5 billion years ago in a common atmospheric envelope, much like a double-yolked egg. Both bodies were surrounded by a swarm of small satellites. As the earth solidified and the oceans formed, tidal friction sent the moon moving out into space...