Word: solarity
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...January, the tiny, instrument-packed spacecraft was buffeted by an exceptionally powerful burst of particles spewed out by the sun. In the space-environment control room at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headquarters in Boulder, Colo., alarms sounded. "All of a sudden, a blast wave of solar wind showed up at the ACE spacecraft," says NOAA's Joe Hirman, "as dense as any we've seen, and, bam, 30 minutes later the earth's magnetic field got hit hard...
...days earlier, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), high above the earth, had captured images of another solar phenomenon--an unusually large prominence, a loop of fiery gases 800,000 miles wide, erupting from the sun's surface. It was also recording increasing numbers of flares--exceptionally hot blotches on the solar surface--and a proliferation of sunspots migrating inexorably toward the sun's equator...
...astronomers, such events signal an approaching solar maximum, a period of great turbulence that roils the sun every 11 years or so. The last solar max occurred in 1989. Now the sun, right on schedule, seems headed toward a peak of activity later this year...
...this, and what's still to come is the byproduct of global warming, a phenomenon by which the burning of fossil fuels traps solar heat within the earth's atmosphere, changing global weather patterns. If this theory is correct, then the basic equilibrium that has maintained the earth's natural heating and cooling system for the past 10,000 years is about to be thrown into turmoil. We will be left...
...Independence, Adam Smith publishing The Wealth of Nations and George Washington leading the Revolutionary forces. The 17th century, on the other hand, despite such colorful leaders as Louis XIV and the ch?teau he left us, will be most remembered for its science: Galileo exploring gravity and the solar system, Descartes developing modern philosophy and Newton discovering the laws of motion and calculus. And the 16th will be remembered for the flourishing of the arts and culture: Michelangelo and Leonardo and Shakespeare creating masterpieces, Elizabeth I creating the Elizabethan...