Word: solarization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...weather in outer space? No doubt about it. Experts think a spark shorted out the connections between the satellite's solar-power panels and several dozen of its radio relays. The spark, in turn, was caused by an electromagnetic storm triggered when a blast of solar gas slammed into the earth's magnetic field at supersonic speed...
...result, space meteorology lags far behind its terrestrial counterpart. But now, thanks to a new generation of satellites--including one, the Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer, that was launched two weeks ago--scientists are getting unprecedented insights into both the electromagnetic weather patterns that affect the earth and the solar dynamo that powers them...
Sound implausible? Consider the alternatives. Sir Fred Hoyle, the distinguished British astronomer, favors an even more radical theory. The idea, known as panspermia, is that billions of years ago, the solar system was peppered by biological "seeds," which took root wherever conditions were right. That would explain how life may have arisen at roughly the same time on Earth and on Mars. But it also raises awkward questions about where those seeds came from and what, or who, sent them flying through space...
...reject it acknowledge that some of life's building blocks probably had extraterrestrial origins. Indeed, they now believe that everything from organic chemicals to amino acids, the constituents of proteins, was carried in by the comets, asteroids and meteorites. And if life happened to form elsewhere in the solar system first, muses biochemist Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, then it's at least possible that something more complex could have been included in the cargo--not necessarily a living organism but a molecular precursor that could have given life on Earth "a kind...
...1970s, Pathfinder will land on Mars' pockmarked surface. Unlike the Vikings, Pathfinder will have someplace to go once it gets there. After the pyramid-shaped payload touches down, its sides will open like the petals of a 3-ft.-tall flower to reveal a six-wheeled rover. Powered by solar cells and D-cell batteries, the 2-ft.-long robot vehicle is supposed to hum away from the landing pod, crawling at 2 ft. a minute, and sample the soil for several weeks--or until its batteries...