Word: planet
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...help answer some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. Two days later, some 29 million kilometers (18 million miles) further out in space and closing in on Venus, a U.S. spacecraft ejected the first of four probes that will thoroughly analyze the atmosphere of the cloud-shrouded planet before hitting its scalding surface...
...release of its first probe, the Pioneer Venus 2 spacecraft this week was scheduled to toss off three additional instrument-crammed packages. The four probes, as well as the mother ship, will arrive at Venus on Dec. 9. All five are aimed to descend over different areas of the planet, so that they will gather the widest possible range of data, including temperatures, composition, density and distribution of the atmosphere. They will be passing through hostile territory. At higher altitudes the probes will be whipped by winds with velocities that may be as high as 360 km (220 miles...
...with, among other things, tough heat-resistant diamond and sapphire windows through which their instruments should be able to peer with impunity. What they detect will provide a trove of important new information about Venus' atmosphere. By learning more about the meteorology of this kindred yet vastly different planet, scientists may gain new insights into terrestrial climate and weather...
Still more revelations about other members of the solar system will follow. Between January and July 1979, first Voyager 1 and then Voyager 2, each after traveling more than half a billion miles, will begin closeup photographic surveys of the giant planet Jupiter and its larger moons. The surveys will be made with television cameras that have as much as 40 times better resolution than the devices carried by Pioneers 10 and 11, which flew by Jupiter in 1973 and 1974, and returned color photographs to earth. After approaching as close as 280,000 km (174,000 miles) of Jupiter...
...sexual fantasy in space? Why not? In television's latest Star Wars spinoff, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Nov. 17 on CBS, Diahann Carroll plays Mermia, a romantic vision from a water planet. She arrives on the screen when Attchituck, a 400-year-old member of the Wookie family, sits down at a special machine designed to enliven the imagination, closes his eyes and thinks X ratings. "I was very happy for him that at age 400 he could still have sensual, sexual fantasies," says Carroll, 43. "As a mere human, I was very jealous...