Word: coronae
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Like a great dahlia, the sun is ringed with petals of light. The inner corona, one-millionth as bright as the sun's heart, is dazzling yellow, the outer corona pearly white, with delicate, wraithlike streamers. Often the corona is racked by violent eruptions that produce magnetic storms through the earth's atmosphere. But it is impossible to detect such phenomena with an ordinary telescope, for the sun's brilliance obscures its crown. For years astronomers rushed to the ends of the earth, chasing eclipses so they could photograph the corona for a few minutes while...
...principle of the coronagraph (which resembles an anti-aircraft gun-see cut) is simple. A metal disc is placed at the focus of the telescope lens to cut out the bright sun image. A second lens focuses on photographic film the black disc and flaring corona, and a powerful spectrograph breaks up coronal radiation into its component colors. A moving picture camera can also be attached to the telescope...
Coronagraph recordings may have great practical value. The magnetic storm which disrupted communications Easter Sunday was probably started, thinks Professor Menzel, when the earth coursed through the tail end of a corona streamer. Coronagraph experiments may help predict such storms in advance...
Although the origin of the light in the corona is unknown, Professor Menzel said that there is a direct relation between great upheavals in the sun's corona and the occurrence of magnetic storms on earth...
Other equipment at the station will include a powerful spectrograph to observe the spectrum of the corona. Color filters as well as movies will be used to record how the corona changes from day to day and how its streamers project into space...