danger of space     

In the 1990s, two small robotic missions were sent to the moon. For 71 days in 1994, the joint NASA-Strategic Defense Initiative Organization Clementine mission orbited the moon, testing sensors developed for space-based missile defense, as well as mapping the color and shape of the moon. From Clementine, we documented the enormous south pole-Aitken impact basin, a hole in the moon 1, 616 miles across and over 8 miles deep. This basin is so large, it may have excavated the entire crust down to the mantle. The color data from Clementine, combined with Apollo sample information, allows us to map regional compositions, creating the first true “rock map” of the moon. Finally, Clementine gave us a tantalizing hint that permanently dark areas near the south pole of the moon may contain frozen water deposited over millions of years by impacting comets.

Soon after Clementine, the Lunar Prospector spacecraft mapped the moon’s surface from orbit during its mission in 1998 and 1999. These data, combined with those from Clementine, gave scientists global compositional maps showing the complicated crust of the moon. Lunar Prospector also mapped the surface magnetic fields for the first time. The data showed that the Apollo 16 Descartes highlands is one of the strongest magnetic areas on the moon, explaining the surface measurements made by John Young in 1972. The mission also found enhanced quantities of hydrogen at both poles, adding to the lively controversy over the welcome prospect for lunar ice.

The moon throws stones at us: Lunar meteorites

The Future and Significance of Lunar ExplorationIn 1982, we made a startling discovery. A meteorite found in Antarctica, ALHA 81005, is from the moon! The rock is a complex regolith breccia, similar to those returned by the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. We have since found over 50 meteorites that, as determined from their unique chemical composition, come from the moon. These rocks were blasted off the lunar surface by impacts, then captured and swept up by Earth as it moves through space. The lunar meteorites come from random places all over the moon and they provide data complementary to the Apollo samples and the global maps of composition obtained by Clementine and Lunar Prospector.

Now we are preparing for humanity’s return to the moon. Over the next couple of years, at least four international robotic missions will orbit the moon, making global maps of unsurpassed quality. We will soft land on the moon, particularly the mysterious polar regions, to map the surface, examine the volatile deposits and characterize the unusual environment there. Ultimately, people will return to the moon. The goals of lunar return this time are not to prove that we can do it (as Apollo did) but to learn how to use the moon to support a new and growing spacefaring capability. On the moon, we will learn the skills and develop the technologies needed to live and work on another world. We will use this knowledge and technology to open the solar system for human exploration.

The story of the moon’s history and processes is interesting in its own right, but it has also subtly shifted perspectives on our own origins. One of the most significant discoveries of the 1980s was the giant impact 65 million years ago in Mexico that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, allowing the subsequent rise of mammals. This discovery (made possible by recognizing and interpreting the telltale chemical and physical signs of hypervelocity impact) came directly from the study of impact rocks and landforms stimulated by Apollo. Scientists now think that impacts are responsible for many, if not most, extinction events in the history of life on Earth. The moon retains this record and we will read it in detail upon our return.

By going to the moon, we continue to obtain new insights into how the universe works and our own origins. Lunar exploration revolutionized understanding of the collision of solid bodies. This process, previously thought to be bizarre and unusual, is now viewed as fundamental to planetary origin and evolution – an unexpected connection. By returning to the moon, we anticipate learning even more about our past, and equally importantly, obtaining a glimpse into our future.

Space debris is a growing problem with space travel. Space debris can be literally anything, from tiny flecks of paint, a metal bolt right up to a fully-sized defunct satellite. Over 2000 satellites have been launched into space since the first, in 1957. But unlike Sputnik, which returned to Earth when it re-entered the atmosphere after three short months in orbit, some have refused to come home, such as the  which is the oldest satellite still orbiting in Earth’s low orbit after its launch in 1958. But these are usually big objects that can be easily spotted, right? Well imagine the mess if two satellites collided! Two big and easy to spot and track objects now turn into thousands of hazardous pieces ranging in size from big to too tiny to track! In Earth’s orbit now there are roughly 21 000 pieces of space trash bigger than 4 inches (10 cm); approximately 500 000 between 1cm and 10cm and millions smaller than 1cm! You may think it doesn’t matter having all these tiny pieces of space debris floating about but you would be very wrong.  They could be lethal! These tiny scary pieces of trash are “floating” at roughly 4 miles per second (6.6 km/s) , turning a tiny fleck of paint into the equivalent of a pound coin hurtling at a speed of 60 mph (100 km/h)! Back in 1983 the Space Shuttle Challenger felt the wrath of an angry paint fleck on their window but still managed to return home from this mission with the damage. So imagine the damage it could do to the all-important space suits Sandra Bullock and George Clooney will be floating about in! Could a fleck of paint bring a quick end to Gravity?

Not only is man-made space debris a very worrying issue, but so are the natural space debris including and  Meteoroids are pieces of rock and metal floating through space which are often left over pieces of rock from the formation of the Solar System. Micrometeoroids are even smaller pieces of meteoroids, often weighing less than a gram. They may sound small but they cause much of the weathering that happens in space and when these particles all gang up and create high speed, things can get nasty! NASA’s Mariner 10 satellite ran into one of these formidable cosmic clouds which resulted in part of its insulation being ripped off and the impact of the cloud being so great it changed the trajectory of the spacecraft! Imagine an astronaut caught up in such a scary cloud and wonder if a space suit could withstand what a heavy duty satellite couldn’t.

CloudSat is an Earth satellite that studies the clouds in ways never before possible. CloudSat's instrument can actually slice through the clouds to see what's inside. It sends out radar signals that bounce off the water in the clouds and return to the CloudSat instrument. The signal that bounces back tells CloudSat how thick the clouds are and how much water they contain. Its data helps scientists understand all the important things to know about clouds.

Knowing how clouds affect Earth's climate is very important. Do clouds trap heat and make Earth's surface warmer? Or do clouds' bright surfaces reflect enough sunlight back into space to make up for the heat they trap? These questions must be answered for scientists to be able to predict how Earth's climate may change. CloudSat flies in a polar orbit (over the North Pole and the South Pole) close together in a certain pattern with four other satellites. This "constellation" of satellites is called the "A-Train."`

This mobile of beautiful, feather-weight clouds is balanced so that any gentle breeze sends them turning and twisting. Some are rain clouds, dropping sparkling showers below.

But it's not just a pretty work of art. The shapes represent certain types of clouds. One is a big, scary cumulonimbus cloud. It is very tall, reaching from the lowest stratus clouds all the way up to the highest cirrus clouds. The cumulonimbus is pouring rain. A real cumulonimbus cloud might be causing lightening and thunder too. Another rain cloud is the nimbostratus. It is low and flat—and heavy with rain.

You can make this cool Cloud Mobile with common materials and supplies—and a little patience to get it balanced just right.

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    past  and future  of planers 

The legacy of our veterans is just not developed enough," said Virginia Walker, Cemetery Director, Fort Richardson and Sitka National Cemeteries. "It's not out there for everyone to know how much these people served our country, how they gave us the freedom we so enjoy today."

The Veterans Legacy Program was launched on Memorial day.

The idea is to use National Cemeteries to help educate young people explore U.S. history, honor veterans, and better understand what it means to be a patriot.

"If you stop remembering, you will forget, and we never want our veterans to be forgotten," Walker said. "We don't want their stories to be forgotten, we don't want people to forget why we are free."

Still in its early stages, the pilot program will provide online lesson plans, short video vignettes and resources that give information on some of the veterans buried in each cemetery to help engage the public. There will also be Interactive maps, which will link the public to the grave makers, offering short histories of selected service people dating back to the Revolutionary War.

With the shocking launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957, the moon changed from a distant silver disk in the sky to a real place, a probable destination for probes and people. The Soviets struck first, flying Luna 1 by the moon in January 1959. They followed this success with a number of other robotic probes, culminating later the same year with Luna 3, which photographed the far side of the moon, never visible from Earth. From these early, poor quality images, we discovered that the far side has surprisingly little of the dark, smooth mare plains that cover about a third of the near side. Other surprises would soon follow.

In response to the 1961 flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The Apollo program greatly accelerated interest in exploring the moon. To ensure that human crews could safely land and depart from the lunar surface, it was important to understand its environment, surface and processes. At the same time, the robotic precursors would collect valuable information, constituting the first scientific exploration of another planetary body.

America’s first step was the Ranger series of hard landers. These probes were designed to photograph the lunar surface at increasing levels of detail before crashing into the surface. After several heartbreaking failures, Ranger 7 succeeded in sending back detailed television pictures of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds) in July 1964. From the Ranger probes, we discovered that craters, those strange holes that pepper the lunar surface, range down in size to the very limits of resolution. Micrometeorite bombardment has ground up the surface rocks, creating a fine powder (called regolith). Two more Ranger spacecraft flew to the moon, culminating with the 1965 Live From the Moon television images from Ranger 9, careening into the spectacular lunar crater Alphonsus.

We got a much closer look at the moon’s surface in early 1966. Again, the U.S.S.R. led the way by safely soft-landing the robotic Luna 9 spacecraft on the mare plain, Oceanus Procellarum. It found the surface to be powdery dirt strewn with a few rocks, but strong enough to support the weight of a landed spacecraft. In May 1966, the United States followed with the landing of the complex robotic spacecraft, Surveyor 1. It sent television pictures back to Earth, showing the surface and its physical properties in detail. Later Surveyor missions (five in all), collected physical data on soil properties, including its chemical composition. Analysis of the lunar surface showed that the dark maria had a composition similar to terrestrial basalt, a dark iron-rich lava, while the highlands near the very fresh rayed crater Tycho were lighter in color and strangely enriched in aluminum. This led to an astonishing revelation about the moon’s early history after the first physical samples were later returned to Earth by the Apollo 11 crew.

The final robotic missions mapped the entire moon from orbit for the first time and obtained extremely high resolution pictures of potential landing sites, certifying their safety for the Apollo missions to follow. This U.S. Lunar Orbiter series conducted five mapping missions, whereby boulders as small as a couple of meters could be seen. They also obtained amazing views of scientifically interesting targets, such as the first “pilot’s eye” view of the large, brightly rayed crater Copernicus, dubbed the “picture of the century” by news reporters. More “pictures of the century” were soon to be obtained by people walking on the moon.

From these robotic missions, we learned that the moon was cratered and pitted at all scales. The surface was powdery dust but strong enough to support the weight of people and machines. The moon had no global magnetic field or atmosphere and was made up of common rock types, similar to those found on Earth. Now the stage was set for the next giant leap in understanding lunar and planetary history.

Apollo was the finest hour of America’s space program. In just eight years, we had gone from zero human spaceflight capability to landing men on the surface of the moon. From these missions, scientists developed a new view of the origin and evolution of the planets and of life on Earth.

The 1968 Christmastime flight of Apollo 8 was a milestone – humans left low Earth orbit and reached the moon, circling it for almost a day. For the first time, people gazed on the moon from orbit. They found it desolate and gray, but saw nothing to prevent journeying the final 62 miles to the surface. In May of 1969, Apollo 10 orbited the moon, testing the lunar lander. It was a dress rehearsal for the manned landing to come. Each of the Apollo missions – and the astronauts who remained in the orbiting Command Module during the subsequent landed missions – took hundreds of high-resolution photographs of the moon’s surface. Their visual observations added to the burgeoning knowledge of lunar geology.

In a harrowing descent marked by program alarms from an overloaded computer and freezing fuel lines, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in Apollo 11 safely landed in Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) on July 20, 1969. They walked on the moon for over 2 hours, collecting rocks and soil and laying out experiment packages. From the Apollo 11 samples, we learned that the dark maria are ancient volcanic lavas, having crystallized over 3.6 billion years ago. Lunar samples are similar in chemical composition to Earth rocks but extremely dry, with no evidence for any significant water on the moon, past or present. Small bits of white rock were found in the soil, blasted to the site from distant highlands. Combined with the earlier results of the Surveyor 7 chemical analysis at the crater Tycho, scientists reasoned that the ancient moon had been nearly completely molten, covered in a layer of liquid rock. This idea of an early “magma ocean” has since been applied to all the rocky planets. Micrometeorite bombardment ground up the bedrock and gases from the sun were implanted on the surfaces of the lunar dust grains. While preserved on the moon, most of this ancient, shared history has been lost on our geologically active Earth.

In November 1969, Apollo 12 touched down in Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), near the previously landed Surveyor 3 spacecraft. This mission demonstrated our ability to precisely land on the moon, a skill critical for navigating to future sites in the highlands and rugged areas. Astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean explored the site in two moonwalks. They collected over 75 pounds of samples and deployed a nuclear-powered experiment package. Lavas from this landing site are slightly younger than those of Apollo 11, but still over 3.1 billion years old. The highland component here is different from that of the first landing; it has an unusual enrichment in radioactive and rare-earth elements, suggesting that the moon’s crust is laterally variable and complex. As a bonus, the crew also returned a light colored soil, possibly part of a “ray” cast-off and flung outward during the formation of the distant crater Copernicus – 186 miles north of the landing site. Dating of glass from this soil suggests that Copernicus is “only” 900 million years old, ancient by Earth standards but one of the youngest major features on the moon.

The explosion of an oxygen tank on Apollo 13 prevented it from landing on the moon. The three-man crew returned safely to Earth — a memorable saga closely followed around the world. Apollo 14 was sent to a highlands site east of Apollo 12, near the ancient crater Fra Mauro. This site was chosen to collect rocks blasted out from deep within the moon by the formation of the giant Imbrium impact basin, a crater over 620 miles in diameter and situated 3,723 miles north of the landing site. Astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell conducted two moonwalks on the lunar surface. Towing a pull-cart filled with tools, they returned over 95 pounds of rock and soil. Samples from the Fra Mauro highlands are breccias (complex mixtures of ancient rocks), broken and crushed by the giant impact that created the Imbrium basin. From these samples, scientists learned the Imbrium impact occurred more than 3.8 billion years ago, before the dark mare lavas flooded the moon’s surface but well after the formation of the moon’s crust over 4.4 billion years ago. After this third landing, a new picture of lunar evolution was emerging. The moon was not a simple lump of cold meteorite nor was it an active volcanic inferno, but a planetary body with its own complex, subtle history.

In July 1971, with Apollo 15, NASA began the first of three what were termed "J" missions – long duration stays on the moon with a greater focus on science than had been possible previously. Apollo 15, whose lunar module Falcon spent three days on the lunar surface, was the first mission to use a lunar rover — a small electric cart that allowed the crew to travel many kilometers away from their landing craft. On three lunar rover excursions Dave Scott and Jim Irwin explored the beautiful Hadley-Apennine landing site — a valley at the base of the main rim of the huge Imbrium basin that included both mare and highland rocks. The crew returned the “Genesis Rock,” composed almost entirely of a single mineral (plagioclase feldspar), representing the most ancient crustal rocks on the moon. They also found small fragments of an emerald green glass, formed when magma from the deep mantle explosively erupted through the crust in a spray of lava. They sampled the mare bedrock at the edge of Hadley Rille, a giant canyon and ancient lava channel, formed over 3.3 billion years ago. The Apollo 15 mission obtained over 80 kilograms of samples and its command module carried chemical sensors and cameras that mapped almost 20 percent of the moon’s surface from orbit.

Full moon - Top: Topographic map of the moon’s near and far sides obtained by Clementine in 1994.
Lunar prospecting - Bottom: The Lunar Prospector mission in 1998 pinpointed concentrations of the element thorium. Photo credits: Paul Spudis, Lunar and Planetary Institute

Apollo 16 was sent to the ancient crater Descartes, deep in the lunar highlands in April 1972. Astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke spent three days exploring the site. They traveled over 18 miles and collected more than 206 pounds of samples. They deployed and operated the first astronomical telescope on the moon. The highlands rocks, almost all breccias, attest to a long and complicated history of repeated impacts from space. Ancient crustal rocks, similar to the Genesis Rock of Apollo 15, were also found. One puzzling observation by the crew was the measurement of a very strong magnetic field on the surface. Even though the moon has no global magnetic field, some lunar samples have remnant magnetism, suggesting that they cooled in the presence of strong fields. Although we still do not understand lunar magnetism, with the flight of Lunar Prospector 26 years later, the Apollo 16 result would become a little clearer.

The last human mission to the moon to date, Apollo 17, was sent to the edge of Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity) -- another combination mare/highland site -- in December 1972. Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt (the first professional geologist sent to the moon) spent three days thoroughly exploring the Taurus-Littrow valley. They returned over 242 pounds of samples and deployed a set of new surface experiments. They made startling and significant discoveries. The crew found 3.6-billion-year old orange volcanic ash. From the mountains, they returned crustal rocks and complex breccias created during the impact that formed the Serenitatis basin almost 3.9 billion years ago. Lavas at this site are over 3.6 billion years old, documenting at least a 700-million-year span of lava flooding on the moon.

The Apollo missions revolutionized planetary science. The early solar system was one of colliding planets, melted surfaces and exploding volcanoes — a complex and violent geologic mixture. The concept of an “early bombardment” 3.9 billion years ago is now widely accepted for all the planets, but the actual evidence comes from study of the lunar samples. The constant rain of micrometeorites grinds away all airless planetary surfaces, albeit this sandblaster is extremely slow (the moon erodes at a rate of roughly 1 millimeter per million years.) While Apollo did a magnificent job of outlining lunar history, more surprises were waiting to be unveiled.

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 space technology   

Space is a crazy place where in the shadow you could freeze to death in seconds and boil in the sunlight the next! Your space suit is vital in keeping you alive making it a mini space ship itself. It regulates the body’s temperature to cancel the hot and cold temperatures outside, and even the astronaut’s own body heat building up inside it, it using layers of insulation and a cooling system. Near Earth space itself is about -180˚C so it is extremely cold! (Space is a vacuum, so just to be clear, this this temperature of objects in the shade.) But when in direct light from our sizzling Sun it is an eye watering 115˚C. So space walks can be fine in space for a short period of time but, if say there’s a glitch in the space suits’ cooling system or a tear happens from a piece of space debris hitting the suits, things could go fatally wrong!

Not only is the space suit keeping your temperature regulated it is allowing you to breathe in space! Space is a vacuum and obviously we are unable to breathe in it without the aid of a space suit. An average life span for a tank of oxygen is between 6 – 8 hours so that gives little time to be found if you get knocked away, not a good time frame to be working with for Mr Clooney or Ms Bullock!

If you find you’re extremely interested in the importance of the space suit click here for a recent interesting article on the Astronotes blog. 

A very big problem for humans and space travel is the risk  On Earth we are protected by the planet’s natural radiation shield, the magnetic field that surrounds our world which blocks out 99.9 percent of the harmful radiation from the Sun and deep space. But what will happen to us if we leave the Earth’s protection and float freely in the vastness of space or visit another body in the Solar System?

Radiation is obviously not healthy for humans. In space radiation is in the form of subatomic particles that can come from the Sun and further out in the Universe including the Milky Way Galaxy and even beyond. They are moving at high speeds and can rip through our DNA molecules causing damage or splitting within them which can lead to cancer and other diseases. So although Hollywood would put this forward as a method to become a member of The Fantastic Four I doubt the ability to stretch or turn invisible is what is in store for Sandra Bullock in ‘Gravity!’

Radiation in space has recently found its way on to the news as it is confirmed to be a big problem for sending humans to Mars and could set space travel to the Martian world back somewhat if a  is not developed.  Confirmation of high levels of radiation was verified with data collected by the space flight of the Mars Curiosity rover to the rusty Red Planet. It has been revealed that the level of radiation that astronauts will be exposed to could raise their chances of cancer! On Earth we are exposed to roughly 3 millisieverts of radiation per year. In the International Space Station astronauts stationed there for the average of six months will be exposed to roughly 100 millisieverts of radiation. A roundtrip mission to Mars, not including time for exploration of the planet, would expose potential Martian astronauts to 662 millisieverts of radiation, which is scary considering in an astronaut’s career their cap is supposed to be 1,000 milliseverts! And bear in mind that they have the protection of a space vehicle to shield some amount of radiation, if you left floating about in the harshness of space all that’s between you and cosmic rays is your space suit and that is not a comforting prospect! Accumulating dangerous doses of radiation would be hazards to crews on any long endurance mission, so any plans to voyage to asteroidsor work on a Moon base must factor in some kind of shielding to protect the delicate humans.

 

Launch and Re-entry

One of the most dangerous places for an astronaut is the launch and re-entry of their rocket. A lot of rocket fuel for reaction mass and energy is required to attain even a low Earth orbit. The spacecraft needs to get up to least 7 miles per second or 25 000 miles per hour, which is a very scary and dangerous speed. Proof of such a thing is the Challenger disaster of 1986 when a Space Shuttle blew apart 73 seconds into its launch costing the lives of all seven members of its crew.

Some may argue that the re-entry of a spacecraft is even more dangerous. The friction of air on the rocket would cause the rocket to burn up like a meteor and be destroyed in seconds, so spacecraft have been designed to allow them to re-enter the atmosphere slowly by gradually circling downward. Now this has not always ran smoothly withColumbia disintegrating during its return to Earth in 2003 after a small part of the Shuttle Orbiter’s wing was damaged on launch. It affected the vehicle’s thermal protection system which ought to have shielded it from the massive amounts of heat which resulted in a further seven astronauts’ deaths. So even if George Clooney and Sandra Bullock’s characters are miraculously rescued from floating away in space they will probably have their fingers crossed for that scary re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere!

 When thinking about the scariness of space, moon dust is not exactly top of the ‘terrible foe’ pile but it’s much more hazardous than you may realise. The Moon, as you know, has no liquid water so the dust on the Moon’s parched plains has the consistency of flour (which allowed the footprints to be made). This fine powder can stick to all it touches and can find its way in to all the creases and seams of your space suit. This dust is made of tiny jagged grains, so it is also rough like sandpaper so can do some damage. Imagine breathing the stuff in, each breath a million tiny daggers, and the damage it can do to your lungs! Over time, the dust would clog them up and eventually kill you and it probably wouldn’t need huge amounts to do so! Apollo 17’s crew learnt their lesson of how dangerous moon dust is back in 1972. So eager to leave the surface, Jack Schmitt and Eugene Cernan forgot to brush the dust off their boots before re-entering their space capsule. Now they knew how annoying this dust could be throughout their mission as it clogged up their suits and they then were stuck with it on their journey home. The dust was immediately airborne and Schmitt soon complained of congestion and something like that of ‘lunar hay fever’! It was too small an amount to hurt them too much and after a day the symptoms subsided but a lesson was learned… fear lunar dust! If we ever return to the Moon to stay, the intrepid pioneers will need to take great care to guard against this subtle hazard.

 

A big issue for me personally is something a little simple and could completely ruin the credibility of the film entirely and give away the ending if they stick to reality and not fantasy. Space is weightless! In the worst possible case, if Sandra Bullock’s character is sent hurtling through space by the time another Shuttle is fueled, manned and sent up she will never be caught up with. Even a slight nudge would send her flying through space never to slow down unless she got hit or blocked by another object i.e. Newton’s First Law of Motion. So putting it into figures say after the huge accident and Sandra Bullock’s character is sent hurtling through space at roughly 24 000 miles per hour on top of her orbital velocity, she will have exceeded the Earth’s escape velocity! Say it takes Earth a week to send a rescue mission to retrieve her by the time they are up there she is millions of miles away (not that the Space Shuttle could have matched this velocity in the first place! It is a very scary thought and perhaps why the movies tag line is ‘Don’t let go’…..because you will end up flying through space forever!

So hopefully this has not put you off the prospect of a future holiday to the Moon and or becoming an astronaut but I am sure it has given you an even deeper respect and admiration for the dangers astronauts face to advance our knowledge of this vast and scary Universe.

This conference is an inquiry into the transformation of human consciousness through re-visioning how we birth and care for our children.Our earliest experiences as infants set the tone for how we later respond to the world around us. Our capacity to love ourselves, others and the Earth is either enabled or suppressed as we come into being. We are all born and have a story to tell.

Facing the challenges of climate change, can we think in life-affirming ways about this critical period of human bonding? From conception through to early childhood, a consciously supported beginning to life is crucial to the future of civilisation and the Earth.

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