Word: solarity
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Money is so tight that many scientific institutions are finding it difficult to maintain the equipment they have, much less buy new instruments. At Kitt Peak in Arizona, the structure of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories' solar telescope was beginning to corrode because astronomers, strapped for funds, had put off painting it. This year they could wait no longer, and instead of buying a new, badly needed $100,000 infrared detector, they put the available money into a paint job. The choice, while necessary, depresses Sidney Wolff, director of NOAO. Although the infrared detector was developed...
...fertile minds of fiction writers, the distant worlds have taken on every imaginable name, from Krypton to Ork, and spawned every imaginable creature, from the Klingons to the Ewoks. But in real life no earthbound astronomer has ever proved the existence of a single planet outside our solar system...
Left in the sun's place was a black orb surrounded by a wide, shimmering halo -- the solar corona, visible only during an eclipse, when it is not obscured by the sun's bright glare. From the 12 o'clock position, an enormous red-orange flame flared beyond the halo; smaller "prominences" appeared at the 3 and 6 o'clock positions. Murmurs of wonder rose from the shivering crowd draped in the steel-gray light. "Mind blowing," said Edward Kuba, University of Hawaii regent. "Wonderful, wonderful," pronounced Sony chairman Akio Morita, one of several VIPs present, as he gazed through...
...Last week the environmental spotlight was on California, where two big Los Angeles power companies -- Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power -- unveiled plans to cut their emissions of CO2 20% during the next 20 years, largely through conservation programs and the use of solar and geothermal technologies. It was the first time any U.S. utility had promised to reduce its output of CO2 to help curb global warming. Southern California Edison chairman John Bryson says the policy "makes good scientific, environmental and business sense...
...that will use low-grade silicon instead of more expensive higher grades to make photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. Says Robert Dietch, a Southern Cal Edison vice president: "This has the potential to be the type of breakthrough technology we've all been looking for in the solar industry...