Word: solarity
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Through telescopes or high-powered binoculars, most of the solar system's planets appear as disks, some with distinguishable surface features. But stars other than the sun are so distant that even the closest one* looks like a mere pinpoint of light through the most powerful telescopes. Now astronomers at Arizona's Kitt Peak National Observatory have improved the stellar image. Using their new 158-in. reflector-the world's second largest telescope-in combination with a novel, computer-enhanced photographic technique, they have produced the first pictures of a star that show some surface detail...
NASA's manned space program may be suffering from hard times, but the space agency's unmanned exploration of the solar system is continuing to report stunning successes. In the past few years, robot spacecraft have surveyed the planet Mars in exquisite detail, sent back the first closeup pictures of Venus and Mercury, and penetrated the powerful radiation belts surrounding the sun's largest satellite, Jupiter. Now, after sweeping even closer to Jupiter than did its predecessor, Pioneer 10, last December, Pioneer 11 is beginning the long trip to its next target: Saturn...
...arcing, 1.5 bill ion-mile voyage across a large part of the solar system will take five years, but flight planners at NASA'S Ames Research Center have every reason to expect the 570-lb. nuclear-powered robot to survive the trip. If it does, it will send back closeup pictures and other data from the ringed planet. Of four Pioneers that were launched into solar orbit between 1965 and 1968 to monitor interplanetary space, all are still transmitting scientific data-even though they were designed by Pioneer's prime contractor, TRW Inc., to last only six months...
...Even larger than the earth's moon, Titan may have an atmosphere and harbor some forms of life. To avoid risk of a collision that could contaminate Titan with earthly bugs, Pioneer will come no closer than 12,000 miles. Finally, the spacecraft will head out of the solar system, sending back signals that should continue at least until it reaches the orbit of Uranus (in 1985). After that the signals will be so faint that not even the largest antennas on earth will be able to pick them...
...week, a small (570 Ibs.), unmanned spacecraft is completing the first lap of an incredible journey. As it hurtles past Jupiter at a speed of 107,000 m.p.h., some 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, Pioneer 11 is slated to use its cameras and instruments to reconnoiter the solar system's largest planet. That will be only part of its task. As it passes 26,000 miles above Jupiter's turbulent cloudtops, the spacecraft will be pulled by the planet's gravitational field into a corkscrew-shaped turn and whipped out on a new trajectory...