Word: solarization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This property has Bahcall and other physicists speaking in superlatives about S.N.O., because it will allow the device to solve one of the enduring mysteries of astrophysics. Known as the solar neutrino problem, it was discovered back in the 1960s. According to calculations originally made by Bahcall, the nuclear fusion reactions at the sun's core should be generating about 200 trillion trillion trillion electron neutrinos every second. But when physicists set out to find them, they were shocked to see evidence of only about a third that number. Among the possible explanations: perhaps scientists didn't understand nuclear physics...
...sensitivity, however, S.N.O. may be able to settle the question of whether the sun's deficit in electron neutrinos is offset by a previously undetected flood of the other kinds. If this works as expected, it should determine once and for all whether neutrinos oscillate. If they don't, solar physics will have to be revised; if they do, particle physics will be turned on its head. "I'd say our solar models are quite reliable," says Bahcall. "But that's why you do experiments. Because what you think you know might turn out to be completely wrong...
Patrick S. McIntosh '62, who is now retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Lab and is continuing to do solar physics research at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says he was among those best acquainted with Kaczynski...
Hyakutake's status as a return visitor makes it ideal for amateur stargazers but a bit less enticing to scientists. Comets are believed to be leftover material from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Millions are still orbiting lazily in a halo called the Oort cloud, far beyond Pluto, where they are perfectly preserved. It's only occasionally that one changes orbit and plunges into the relative warmth of Earth's neighborhood. And the more often a comet returns to be heated, the more its structure and chemical composition are altered...
Although a truly primordial comet would tell them more about the original chemistry of the solar system, astronomers are still thrilled to see any comet this close. "We can't exactly reach out and touch them," says Green. "We have to wait for them to come...