Word: cloud
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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During the early 1950s, parents in the little town of St. George in southwestern Utah often woke their children up at 6 a.m., hustled them to the top of Black Hill on the western edge of the community, and let them watch the mushroom clouds rising into the dawn sky over the atomic-bomb testing site in neighboring Nevada. When a pinkish-red cloud drifted over St. George hours later, the parents were not frightened; after all, the Atomic Energy Commission had assured them that "there is no danger" from radioactive fallout. Some parents even held Geiger counters on their...
Last week, after a journey of 18 months, a tiny visitor from earth streaked precariously close to the giant of the solar system, penetrating deep into Jupiter's powerful magnetic field and coming within 278,000 km (172,400 miles) of the Jovian cloud tops. Back at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab, controllers waited breathlessly to see whether the plucky robot would survive that dangerous encounter. But even before Voyager 1 made its closest approach on Monday, the 826 kg (1,820 lb.) unmanned spacecraft sent home a trove of new findings about Jupiter, including evidence that...
...spacecraft's first brush with the so-called bow shock region, where the Jovian magnetic field traps the solar wind, Voyager's sensitive instruments picked up a bewildering jet stream of frozen ammonia apparently traveling at 560 km (350 miles) per hour above the planet's clouds. Voyager also discovered a dazzling, doughnut-shaped cloud of electrically charged particles that formed displays similar to the earth's northern lights...
...most curious of all these major moons is the innermost, lo (pronounced eye-oh). Roughly the size of the earth's own moon, it has reddish polar caps, a yellowish sodium cloud cover and a strange surface chemistry that may be a consequence of intense radiation bombardment. On its closest approach, Voyager will come within 18,800 km (11,650 miles) of this mysterious moon. Then, as Voyager sweeps away, its instruments will get glimpses of the other Jovian moons, perhaps even a tiny 14th moon, which was spotted several years...
North America's last solar eclipse of the century (right) was obscured by a cold gray cloud cover along much of the path of totality. But eclipse buffs near Roundup, Mont, (left), and other viewing areas in the U.S. Northwest and Canada were luckier. Armed with telescopes, cameras and other paraphernalia, they let out joyful whoops under mostly clear skies as the moon's shadow raced toward northern Greenland. It was an all too brief show-as long as 2 min. 36 sec. in Helena, Mont., less than a minute elsewhere-and a rare one. It will...