Chapter 5 [END]

Kaliponioak Lia and Rahul entered the palace, and as soon as Rahul laid his eyes on the magnificent combination tube of stones, he was taken aback. He had never witnessed such a radiant and vividly blue tube before.

After engaging in a discussion about the tube, all the aliens were served a meal. They consumed their food and proceeded to witness the momentous occasion.

Kaliponioak Lia approached the tube, intending to seal it, when Rahul impulsively leaped inside and pressed the red switch, closing the tube. This action incited Kaliponioak Lia's anger, and he launched an attack on Rahul. However, due to his diminished powers, he experienced intense pain. After a while, the tube opened again.

Upon realizing that Kaliponioak Lia's powers had been completely destroyed, a wave of joy swept over all the aliens, who expressed their gratitude to Rahul. Kaliponioak Lia seethed with rage. He grabbed a gun and attempted to shoot Rahul, but an alien intercepted the shot, sacrificing themselves. Witnessing this act of bravery, Mopo Kafo swiftly eliminated the wicked Kaliponioak Lia and his officials. The king was freed, and the people rejoiced in their newfound independence.

In recognition of their valor, the king bestowed upon Rahul and Mira the seeds of ice flowers and the renowned sword of the aliens. Mira took one last visit to the backyard, cherishing her time amidst the plants and flowers.

Now, it was time for them to return home.

Rahul and Mira made their way back home, where they recounted their extraordinary adventure and the enchanting ice flower seeds to Uncle Vikrant. Laughter filled the room as the three of them shared their joy.

As their holidays drew to a close and they still had unfinished tasks, they resumed their daily routines. Rahul brought Peter back, and Mira's face lit up with happiness as she tightly embraced her beloved pet.

The following morning, it was time to return to school, but their holiday homework remained incomplete. Mira felt disheartened. However, when she glanced at her notebook, she was astonished to find her work completed. Curious, she inquired about it from Rahul. With a smile, Rahul replied, "Mopo Kafo came and helped us complete our homework."

Her spirits lifted, and they both set off for school.

(Mopo Kafo continued to visit Earth and meet them.)

[END]

Earth:

Earth, third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in the solar system in terms of size and mass. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places in the universe known to harbour life. It is designated by the symbol ♁. Earth's name in English, the international language of astronomy, derives from Old English and Germanic words for ground and earth, and it is the only name for a planet of the solar system that does not come from Greco-Roman mythology. Earth is part of the "observable universe," the region of space that humans can actually or theoretically observe with the aid of technology. Unlike the observable universe, the universe is possibly infinite.

Since the Copernican revolution of the 16th century, at which time the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a Sun-centred model of the universe (see heliocentric system), enlightened thinkers have regarded Earth as a planet like the others of the solar system. Concurrent sea voyages provided practical proof that Earth is a globe, just as Galileo's use of his newly invented telescope in the early 17th century soon showed various other planets to be globes as well. It was only after the dawn of the space age, however, when photographs from rockets and orbiting spacecraft first captured the dramatic curvature of Earth's horizon, that the conception of Earth as a roughly spherical planet rather than as a flat entity was verified by direct human observation. Humans first witnessed Earth as a complete orb floating in the inky blackness of space in December 1968 when Apollo 8 carried astronauts around the Moon. Robotic space probes on their way to destinations beyond Earth, such as the Galileo and the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft in the 1990s, also looked back with their cameras to provide other unique portraits of the planet.

Viewed from another planet in the solar system, Earth would appear bright and bluish in colour. Easiest to see through a large telescope would be its atmospheric features, chiefly the swirling white cloud patterns of midlatitude and tropical storms, ranged in roughly latitudinal belts around the planet. The polar regions also would appear a brilliant white, because of the clouds above and the snow and ice below. Beneath the changing patterns of clouds would appear the much darker blue-black oceans, interrupted by occasional tawny patches of desert lands. The green landscapes that harbour most human life would not be easily seen from space. Not only do they constitute a modest fraction of the land area, which itself is less than one-third of Earth's surface, but they are often obscured by clouds. Over the course of the seasons, some changes in the storm patterns and cloud belts on Earth would be observed. Also prominent would be the growth and recession of the winter snowcap across land areas of the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists have applied the full battery of modern instrumentation to studying Earth in ways that have not yet been possible for the other planets; thus, much more is known about its structure and composition. This detailed knowledge, in turn, provides deeper insight into the mechanisms by which planets in general cool down, by which their magnetic fields are generated, and by which the separation of lighter elements from heavier ones as planets develop their internal structure releases additional energy for geologic processes and alters crustal compositions.

Earth's surface is traditionally subdivided into seven continental masses: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. These continents are surrounded by five major bodies of water: the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern oceans. However, it is convenient to consider separate parts of Earth in terms of concentric, roughly spherical layers. Extending from the interior outward, these are the core, the mantle, the crust (including the rocky surface), the hydrosphere (predominantly the oceans, which fill in low places in the crust), the atmosphere (itself divided into spherical zones such as the troposphere, where weather occurs, and the stratosphere, where lies the ozone layer that shields Earth's surface and its organisms against the Sun's ultraviolet rays), and the magnetosphere (an enormous region in space where Earth's magnetic field dominates the behaviour of electrically charged particles coming from the Sun).