Word: solar
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When the sun rose over Moscow last June 28, Russian astronomers observed a solar flare-a great jet of intensely hot gas spurting out of the sun. They flashed the news to the World Warning Agency near Washington, D.C., and a volley of messages alerted scientists all over the world, including those parts that were still in darkness. The effects of the flare, a violent magnetic storm and a radio blackout, were observed from the South Pole to the Arctic and all around the equator...
...great advantage of the system: it can use heat from any source. Eventually, it may be possible to convert the sun's heat directly into electricity, power spaceships by solar energy. Says Dr. Guy Suits, G.E. vice president and director of research: "Right now we think our converter is significant to science. If we can increase its efficiency, it will be fundamentally significant to technology...
...instruments, says Dr. Francis Reichelderfer, head of the U.S. Weather Bureau, is that science cannot now keep track of the earth's "heat balance." The incoming energy from the sun fluctuates in an unknown manner, and the amount of cloud-cover on the earth affects the percentage of solar energy that is bounced back into space. A satellite equipped with proper instruments could measure incoming and outgoing energy, thereby help weathermen to predict as much as a year ahead whether a season is apt to be warmer or colder than usual...
...some of his most strenuous efforts to measuring and recording its progress. As early as the 6th century B.C. the Babylonians calculated the duration of a lunar month with a margin of error of only 2.2 sec. With the pyramids the Egyptians created gigantic scientific instruments for measuring the solar year, building their sides trued to the four cardinal directions. Using the Egyptian year, Julius Caesar in 45 B.C. made the Julian calendar standard throughout the Roman world. To these scientific measurements, later calendar makers added an overburden of myth, magic and homely folklore with advice so complete that even...
...their busy classrooms, filled with youngsters poring over books and maps or making models of the solar system, even the McCormicks have been surprised by the eagerness they see. One little boy of five, who had attended a regular kindergarten, entered Adastra suffering from nightmares, constant stomach upsets and a nasty rash. Now, no longer bored, he reads, is rapidly learning Spanish, and his symptoms are gone. A girl of four kept vanishing from Adastra's kindergarten to join the first grade, would be brought back screaming: "They have books in kindergarten but just with pictures. They...