How about we start talking about the more interesting things in this article. Last month Nasa and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) landed the heaviest, but most intelligent and technologically developed payload, ever to touch the Martian surface. I am of course referring to the 2020 Perseverance rover. It carries seven primary payload instruments, 19 cameras, and two microphones. The rover is also carrying the mini-helicopter Ingenuity, an experimental aircraft that will attempt the first ever powered flight on another planet.
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SpaceX did it again: SpaceX's latest Starship prototype went out in a blaze of glory.
The Starship SN10 spacecraft touched down successfully after a high-altitude test flight in March 3, a major milestone for the company and its crewed Mars ambitions. But the vehicle didn't manage to hold itself together, exploding about eight minutes after landing.
The big stainless-steel SN10 launched from SpaceX's South Texas site, rose 10 kilometers into the sky and came back safely to Earth for a smooth touchdown after 6 minutes and 20 seconds from liftoff.
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Space (What is space according to many scientific sources: Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction.) facts that probably you didn’t know:
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Space is completely silent (due to the vacuum-no air).
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99% of our solar system's mass is the sun.
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More energy from the sun hits Earth every hour than the planet uses in a year.
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One day on Venus is longer than one year on Earth and 10 days longer than 1 year on Venus.
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The universe is constantly expanding.
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A competed NASA space suit costs $12,000,000.
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There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth.
THE END!!!
Thank you for reading this article. It means a lot for us. Comment down below your thoughts and ideas and tell me your favorite STEM activities that we can discuss in later articles.
Geitonas student newsletter
Animal Farm-Review
For decades in the past, the Soviet Union was a real part of history, not just a piece of history as it is now. Many people of all sorts of different walks of life were affected by it. And many books were written about the communist regime that was over Russia and a sizeable part of Asia and even Europe for approximately 69 years, and its authoritative nature, its history, but few are as well-known as George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, an allegorical text about the history of Communist Russia.
The setting is a farm, which symbolizes Russia, run by a man named Mr Jones, who symbolizes Tsar Nicolas the 2nd, and his family, with a population of animals that represent the working class. There are also other farms that represent Germany and England, Mr Pilkington and Mister Frederick, as well as minor aspects of the setting such as the windmill, which represents industrialization.
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The characters are also interesting, and just like the setting, they are highly symbolic. The horses Clover and Boxer represent the hopeful, hard-working middle-class citizens, sheep and hens represent obedient, average citizens, the donkey Benjamin represents the cynical older generation that fought in the first World War and the goat Muriel represents mothers of this time frame. There are also the pigs, which represent the communist government of the USSR, at first willing to aid the population, but later becoming more self-centered and running the farm in a way that they simply replaced the farmer as the head of the farm. In particular, Squealer who the delivers speeches to the farm animals represents the propaganda that was provided to the people of the USSR. The other two major pigs, Napoleon and Snowball each represent a Communist leader, the former being an allegory for Joseph Stalin and the latter for Leon Trotsky. Other elements such as the dogs are stand-ins for Stalin’s secret police, Moses the crow symbolizes religion and every other character in the book, every location and event is symbolic of one thing or the other in the history of the Soviet Union.
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In short, Animal Farm is an exquisite book. George Orwell was a communist revolutionary himself, who experienced first hand the reality of the regime from within. His book at first seems entirely preposterous, comparing one of the worlds largest known dictatorships to a farm, but every character serves a purpose in conveying the reality of a totalitarian regime, every location parallelizes a real place either in or out of the Soviet Union, every event and almost every line of dialogue give us insight in how the Soviet Union changed, convinced, threatened or indoctrinated its citizens. Truly, I can say it is a must-read, an excellent coverage of one of the most significant nations of these past few centuries, who’s effects cant be felt across Europe, Asia and the world at large to this day.
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The plot is also rather interesting, and also allegorical. The short version is that it follows the history of the Soviet Union through the disgruntled animals of the Manor farm, through the establishment of the Soviet Union with the founding of Animal Farm after running out Mr Jones. Then follows the gradual decline in which the animals work harder and harder, get fed less and less, while the pigs live luxurious lives, with the construction of a windmill parallelizing the industrialization of Russia and even a war with a neighbor serving as an allegory for the Second World Was. It ends with an excellent scene that this review could not try to serve justice, emulating the post-war treaties, showing that the pigs of the farm had become unrecognizable from the humans they were talking with, drawing a comparison to how they had become exactly like their original oppressors. The plot may be simple, but almost every element of it has a direct correlation to the real history, from geese refusing to lay eggs, to Snowball fleeing the farm, to Mr. Jones’ death far from his farm, poor and an alcoholic, to the original inspirator of the revolution, all have a symbolic meaning.