Word: solarity
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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During a maximum, marked by a jump in the number of sunspots and flares, giant loops of incandescent gases, called prominences, proliferate, shooting tens of thousands of miles above the solar surface, sometimes hanging suspended for months. The solar corona, the halo around the sun visible during total eclipses, becomes fuller and brighter; great blobs of the corona, containing billions of tons of hot gas, occasionally burst free, shooting into space at speeds as high as 2 million m.p.h. And the earth's upper atmosphere, pummeled by solar particles, is laced by electrical currents of as much as a million...
Because the previous maximum occurred in late 1979, astronomers had targeted 1991 as the year when solar frenzy would again peak. But the sun is notably capricious. While the intervals between maximums average eleven years, some have been as short as seven, others as long as 17. Ever since the sun began revving up three years ago toward the next maximum, its activity has mounted with unprecedented speed...
...perhaps even later this year, instead of 1991, as the beginning of the maximum. And what a maximum it could be. Despite the ferocity of the March flares, Moore warns, "this cycle is still in its early phase. It's got quite a way to go." Solar buffs are speculating it might approach the violence reached by the 1957-58 maximum, which touched off five disruptive geomagnetic superstorms and vivid auroral displays. Says astronomer Donald Neidig at the National Solar Observatory outpost on Sacramento Peak, near Sunspot, N. Mex.: "We can't rule out a record breaker...
...anticipation of the fireworks, astronomers scheduled a two-week, worldwide solar-observation period during the second half of June. The project was timed to benefit from the observations of the Solar Maximum Mission satellite (nicknamed Solar Max) before it plunges to its death. Lofted into earth orbit in 1980 to monitor the sun's activity, the satellite is gradually descending and will probably re-enter the earth's atmosphere in November and be incinerated. Solar Max's readings of the sun's activity were coordinated with observations made all over the world by ground-based telescopes and instruments mounted...
...major goal of the project was to catch a flare in the act, mapping all the solar high jinks associated with it from beginning to end. The sun's timing could not have been better. During the first week of observations, it set off several large flares and ejected billions of tons of matter in a prominence that extended more than 200,000 miles into space...