Word: polarity
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...away, the best close-up portrait man has ever had of Mars. At week's end, an identical twin named Mariner 7 moved into position for similar electronic observations. Mariner 6 aimed its close-up cameras on Martian equatorial regions, Mariner 7 at the planet's south polar area. Together they were programmed to photograph about 20% of the Martian surface...
Despite ingenious techniques of optical and radio telescopy, astronomers have piled up more questions about Mars than answers. What is the true nature of those strange seasonal dark-enings? Are the white polar caps composed of frozen water or, as many astronomers believe, dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide)? Do those long controversial "canals" really exist, or are they optical illusions? The 1965 flight of Mariner 4 showed that Mars is pocked by moonlike craters, apparently as a result of meteor bombardment. But the unmanned probe did not determine whether Mars can support anything remotely like earthly life...
...recorded 33 pictures and brought earthly viewers within 453,350 miles of the red planet. None of the initial photographs were particularly startling. But Caltech's Robert B. Leighton, director of the photographic work, noted that at least one picture showed a ragged edge at the south polar cap-"possibly caused by the presence of mountains or craters...
...wires and transistors, their very heartbeats monitored for deviation. Most of their decisions are made by computers. Hundreds of ships, planes, doctors and technicians stand by to rescue them from error. All this is strikingly different from the lonely struggles of the ancient mariners and American pioneers, the early Polar explorers like Scott and Peary, the early aviators like the Wright brothers and Lindbergh. To many of today's young, who view courage in moral terms as a battle against impersonal organization, the astronauts do not seem particularly heroic precisely because they epitomize the organization...
...water's higher level is clearly evident in the yearly rise in a slimy black-green line on the palazzi along the Grand Canal. Because of the melting of polar ice, the sea level at Venice is rising .055 in. a year. At the same time, the island is sinking .106 in. a year -partly because industrialists and farmers have been pumping away the cushion of underground water. An even more serious factor has been dredging operations in the lagoon between Venice and Marghera, its rapidly expanding industrial satellite on the mainland...