Word: solarity
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...satellites sometimes break down in a matter of weeks. Photoreconnaissance satellites literally drop their film to earth for processing. The ultraconservative Soviet military is just now beginning to experiment with the techniques of electronic imaging developed by U.S. scientists years ago. Still, admits Geoffrey Briggs, NASA's director of solar-system exploration, "it's not clear that you need state of the art to be effective...
Their interest is hardly academic. The ozone-enriched air, which stretches from six to 30 miles up, protects life on earth from dangerous solar ultraviolet radiation (UV). Although ozone, whose molecules are made of three oxygen atoms, absorbs UV radiation, even the amount that now penetrates the ozone layer can cause skin cancers and has been linked to cataracts. With less ozone, these disorders will increase; with no ozone at all, the UV could be deadly. Scientists have long suspected that decomposing CFCs in the stratosphere release chlorine, which acts as a catalyst, breaking ozone molecules apart...
...solar system unique in the universe? This question has long driven astronomers to search for planets beyond our sun's. Last week three Canadian astronomers presented the first hard evidence that at least one planet, probably larger than Jupiter, may orbit around Epsilon Eridani, a nearby star favored by planet hunters...
...heroine of A Hazard of Hearts, an upcoming CBS-TV movie based on the 1949 gothic romance by Barbara Cartland, 85. Author met actress during the filming at a 19th century mansion in Lincolnshire. Jokes Bonham Carter: "She immediately told me how to emanate innocence from my solar plexus. I had a disadvantage because I'm a brunet." Cartland admits that "at first I was a little worried because all my heroines are blond." Her fears were soon banished by Bonham Carter's breathless portrayal of Serena, the young beauty who is whisked away by the evil Marquis of Vulcan...
...real trouble will begin as the sun nears the 10 billion-year mark, when the thermonuclear fires that have been burning since its birth have fused all the hydrogen fuel in the solar core into helium. As the fuel runs out, the nuclear fire will die down, and the now largely helium core -- which has been kept distended by the heat -- will begin to contract under its own gravitational pull...