Word: solarity
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Strange Behavior. At the beginning of a solar cycle, which averages eleven years, a few sunspots materialize about 35 degrees away from the solar equator in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Some last for a few days or weeks, others for months. As the cycle progresses, the spots occur with greater frequency and appear ever closer to the equator. About five years after the cycle begins, the sunspots increase to a maximum number, and appear around 15 degrees from the equator. During the next six years, the number of sunspots gradually decreases. Before the last of the old spots...
Another puzzling change heralds the new cycle: the polarity of the sunspot pairs reverses. Thus, if the leading spots of pairs are negative in the northern hemisphere during one eleven-year cycle, they are positive during the next. Even more remarkable, the overall solar magnetic field reverses near the peak of each cycle, the north and south magnetic poles trading places. This strange behavior may result from distortions in the magnetic fields caused by the sun's uneven rate of rotation; for still-unknown reasons, the equatorial regions rotate around the solar axis every 25 days, regions at higher...
...been evident to astronomers for some time that solar disturbances occur in rather close harmony with the appearance of the sunspots. Thus there were fierce solar storms during and shortly after the record numerical peak in sunspots during 1957-58 and a long lull during the sunspot minimum in 1963-64. There is an even closer connection. Most of the violent solar eruptions occur near clusters of sunspots on the solar surface and seem to derive their energy from the magnetic fields that cause the spots. Suddenly flaring into extreme brilliance, a region hundreds of millions of square miles...
Constant Vigil. This time lag has enabled NASA to set up a reasonably reliable Solar Particle Alert Network (SPAN) to protect astronauts from the vagaries of the sun. SPAN consists of six observatories that monitor the sun 24 hours a day. During this week's Apollo flight, they will feed information into a space environment console in Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center, where physicists and medical men will keep a constant vigil. In addition, Pioneer, Vela and other patrolling satellites will report any changes in solar radiation. Should SPAN report a suspicious-looking flare during the Apollo mission...
...shower" with a vacuum cleaner to get rid of wastes, and even a forced-air toilet. Both the second and third missions will keep crews in orbit for 56 days. In the third, an orbiting observatory will be sent aloft with 13 instruments for studying the sun -particularly the solar flares that are a hazard to space flight...