Why are the lunar mountains smoothly rounded rather than having sharp, pointed peaks (as they were almost always depicted in science-fiction illustrations and films before the first lunar landings)?

As part of an industrial process, air as an ideal gas at 10 bar, 400k expands at steady state through a valve to a pressure of 4 bar. the mass flow rate of air is 0.5 kg/s. the air then passes through a heat exchanger where it is cooled to a temperature of 295k with negligible change in pressure. the valve can be modeled as a throttling process, and kinetic and potential energy effects can be neglected. (a) for a control volume enclosing the valve and heat exchanger and enough of the local surroundings that the heat transfer occurs at the ambient temperature of 295 k, determine the rate of entropy production, in kw/k. (b) if the expansion valve were replaced by an adiabatic turbine operating isentropically, what would be the entropy production? compare the results of parts (a) and (b) and discuss.

Atwo-stage air compressor operates at steady state, compression 10m^3/min of air from 100 kpa and 300k to 1200 kpa. an intercooler between the two stages cools the air to 300k at a constant pressure of 350 kpa. the compression processes are isentropic. a) calculate the power required to run the compressor, in kw b) compare the result to the power required for isentropic compression from the same inlet state to the same final pressure.

More solar radiation is absorbed by earth’s surface than by