Word: solarity
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Genesis, a mission run by NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was launched in August 2001 to solve a cosmic conundrum. Although the sun and the flood of particles it radiates make up 99% of all the matter in the solar system, earthlings have never been able to grab hold of much of that so-called solar wind, beyond a tiny bit collected by several of the Apollo missions. Earth's magnetic field causes the stream of hydrogen, helium and other elements the sun gives off to flow around our world like river water around a rock...
...researchers could collect a better helping of such ancient stuff, that would go a long way toward explaining how the crude materials that constituted the early solar system developed into the discrete planets that exist today. For 27 months of its three-year mission, Genesis trolled through space beyond the orbit of the moon, gathering solar wind on five 4-in. hexagonal collector plates--each coated with silicon, gold, sapphire or diamond--and then stowing them back inside the body of the spacecraft. What's there could be a cosmic treasure: "A billion billion molecules for us to study," says...
...taking shape." ... The oil bust has spoiled the economics of alternative energy as well. Many of the ballyhooed 1970s-era programs to extract petroleum from oil shale and tar sands have been mothballed because they cost too much to operate. The hundreds of mom-and-pop solar-power companies that sprang up in the past decade have mostly folded, even in the Sunbelt. Says Susan deWitt, executive director for the California Solar Energy Industries Association: "Our customers no longer feel the urgency to pursue renewable energy." --TIME, April...
...Solar panel (back...
...MESSENGER PROBE A nimble little spacecraft, MESSENGER weighs just 2,400 lbs. (1,100 kg), 55% of which is fuel. It carries a dual camera system and six other scientific instruments, all of which operate on solar power-something of which there is no shortage so close to the sun. A sunshade made of ceramic cloth keeps the hardware running at a balmy room temperature...