Documents / FOIA release
This JPRS translation, dated 1 August 1990, is an article from the Soviet journal Kommunist by Leonid Grishchuk of the Shternberg State Astronomy Institute. In it he argues that basic science needs state support. He notes that lecture audiences ask a lot about flying saucers and space aliens. He goes on to review cosmology, including galaxy structure, cosmic expansion, relic radiation, Fridman's models and inflationary theory. He closes by saying the question of non-Earth civilizations is a topic for another author.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1990 Document 12 of 16 Page 6 common element is hydrogen. It makes up about 75 percent of the overall mass of matter. Virtually all the rest is helium. The numerous light and heavy elements encountered in nature are represented only in parts of a percent. Altogether, they barely contribute two percent to the overall mass of matter. From this point of view, planets and life on them, built out of heavy elements, are an extraordinarily great rarity. 21. Elements from carbon to iron arise as a product of thermonuclear reactions in the cores of stars during the calm stage of their evolution. The heavier elements are formed during supernova-type explosive processes. As the result of the explosions of massive stars, rapidly ending their evolution, various chemical elements enter the interstellar gases. 22. Helium and certain other light elements have pre-stellar origins. This follows from the fact that, during the entire existence of the Galaxy, only roughly 15 times less helium, than that which is in fact observed, could have appeared. The required quantity of helium could easily have been formed in the epoch of so-called primary nucleosynthesis, when the density of pre-galactic matter reached values typical of the density of nuclear matter. Let us recall that relic radiation began to spread freely about 10-20 billion years ago. ## 23. Theory and Extrapolations 24. The basic physical theories form the theoretical foundation for cosmology. Historically, the concept of a nonstationary universe was first suggested by our fellow countryman A.A. Fridman, even before experimental evidence of the phenomenon of "'dispersion'" of galaxies. In his theoretical works, A.A. Fridman proceeded from the simplest assumptions about the homogeneity and isotropy of the continuous distribution of matter with a positive density and a very slight pressure. Using the equations of A. Einstein's relativistic theory of gravitation, A.A. Fridman proved that the corresponding solutions mandatorily depend on time. It was not immediately realized that the non-stationary nature of such systems is completely natural and inevitable. It is identically warranted both in relativistic theory, as well as in the usual Newtonian theory of gravitation. In the absence of decreases in pressure or any other forces capable of opposing gravity, no ordinary substance can be eternally in a state of rest. Depending on initial conditions, it can either slowly expand or contract. The final fate of an expanding gravitational system depends on whether the average density of matter is great enough that the forces of gravity will slow down the expansion and, in the future, turn expansion into compression. If the average density of matter is greater than a certain value, called the
Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 12 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.