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Flying spider(Gossamer)
Do you know the flying spider?
There is the high-speed jet stream which run over Japan from the west to the east. It is known by Japan uses this at the World War II final stage, and having sent a balloon bomb to America. If the spider is sent on jet stream on the Japanese sky, the spider can go to America.
There is no information In a dictionary : Random-House Dictionary of English Language(The unabridged edition ). We can find a information in encyclopedia in Japanese. Gossamer : in calm weather , esp. in autumn, a thread or a web of this substance. In this case a spider cannot fly in the air if there is not an ascending current of air. For spider to begin independence life and disperses ,there are various ways . Catching ascending current of air, and to go to the distant ground is the one of them.
Flying in the air of a spider are called as ballooning. Two ways of causes are thought about so that this phenomenon occurs.
(1) It is a fine day, that hardly feels wind , an ascending current of air is easy to come to occur. Child spider which hatched in such a day, the spider rise up on a rod of stumps of rice , put up his hip toward the sky, and develop the thread , then the thread grow up steadily by ascending current of air high in the sky. Among them thread gains buoyancy and pulls child spider which cling to a rod, and pull the spider to the sky. If some good situation of a current of air, there is an aerial flight to the considerably distant ground.
In Japan, warm weather in early spring or in late autumn, it is the good condition. Japanese call it snow send(YKIOKURI in Japanese) in early spring or inviting snow(YUKIMUKAE in Japanese) in late autumn. An airplane of an open seat of American agricultural administration ministry was find the fact that poured a spider into a net, at altitude of 5 miles (8000 m), temperature zero degree. The fact show that a spider is sent on to sky by an ascending current of air , which was obtained more to about 5000 m. This phenomenon was called Gossamer in the West, and it was known for a long time. It was Saburo NISIKI who did a thorough study about Gossamer. His study spread through a global scale. You can find the career of Mr. NISIKI in the following URL.
http://kbic.ardour.co.jp/%7Emaco513/nishiki.htm
Because his book is out of print, I will quote a famous book "flight spider"(in Japanese) (Marunouchi publication ,1972) partly as follows.
An altitude of 8000 m say to jet stream that they do one and a rotation of the earth in the sky of 12000 m from lat. 30 degrees N to 50 degrees N. We tries to suppose a spider is sent on this current of air. When the spiders which we observed got on an ascending current of air well until now, it can arrive at jet stream in about 6 hours, because it is about 50 cm per second. The speed that a spider flies in ground is around 30 cm per second, but it is quicker than it when having been sent on an ascending current of air. If an ascending current of air is the most favorable and becomes 1m per second, I get on this current of air in about 3 hours. Because jet stream is about 80 m per second west wind, it reaches the sky of the American Continent after seven or eight days.
Will it be given life a spider low temperature of the sky equal to or more than an altitude of 10000 m? There is experience when Belgian stratosphere balloon student rose with a balloon of a black painting. According to it, he say that "the outside temperature was equal to or less than 20 degrees below zero in the sky of 50000 feet(15000 m), but I am hot in a gondola so that black paint absorbs solar heat and was unbearable. Temperature of atmosphere in 15000m sky is about minus 20 degrees. As for the temperature of the sky of an altitude of 50000m is 0 degree, 15000m with temperature minus 20 degree ,temperature at 10000m will be minus10 degrees. As a spider on the snow with a boundary of life and death is minus 10 degrees, temperature of the sky of an altitude of 10000m is just on the border.
There is not a change of weather by fine weather in jet stream. If it is a black spider, he can take enough in solar heat. If a spider is sent on jet stream, he can cross over the Pacific . The investigation of American agricultural administration ministry, caught spider was a mainly black spider. It was given to the Shimbun (March 28, 1955 that a double spider inhabited moss of dark reddish-brAsahiown on a mountain of the South Pole. It is interest this is for it to be thought in conjunction with aerial movement of a spider and cold understands a spider how It shows that spider is strong for cold.