Word: solarity
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...intense solar observations should provide clues to many of the still unanswered or only partly resolved questions about the sun: Does the solar cycle affect terrestrial weather? What internal mechanisms control the cycle? Is the sun growing cooler? Hotter? Is there a basic flaw in the current theory about the fusion process that powers the solar furnace...
While the recent flares did not measure up to the March conflagration, astronomers were jubilant. "We have been exceptionally lucky," says Alan Kiplinger, a solar physicist at the University of Colorado. "It's unusual to have the sun cooperate...
Among the first to feel the effects of the flare's fury was the orbiting Solar Max. As the radiation saturated Solar Max's instruments, a NASA spokesman reported, "the satellite was stunned for a minute and then recovered." Heated by the incoming blast of radiation, the upper fringe of the atmosphere expanded farther into space. Low-orbiting satellites, encountering that fringe and running into increasing drag, slowed and dropped into still lower orbits. A secret Defense Department satellite began a premature and fatal tumble, and the tracking system that keeps exact tabs on some 19,000 objects in earth...
...most dramatic manifestation of the solar flare was the two-night, spectacular display of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, that awed Paul Avellar and millions of others. Arriving high-energy electrons, deflected by the earth's magnetic field, spilled into the upper atmosphere near the north and south polar regions, which are unprotected by magnetic-field lines. Acting much as does the electrical current in a neon sign, the electrons banged into oxygen atoms, causing them to emit red and green light...
Through the centuries, few natural phenomena have inspired as much fear and awe as solar eclipses. The ancient Chinese used firecrackers and gongs to drive away the spirit they thought was devouring the sun. Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee, aware that a most timely total eclipse was going to occur, escaped being burned at the stake by King Arthur's knights when he predicted that the sun would disappear. A benign form of sun worship continues to this day, not only among beachgoers but also by a group of intrepid American astronomy buffs who have traveled around the world...