Word: solarized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Once the radar signature of a U.S. satellite has been determined, it is relatively easy to detect changes in the spacecraft's known configuration. In June, RSA was employed to discover which of four solar panels on a secret Air Force satellite had not flopped into place. When telemetry failed to confirm that a boom on a gravity gradient satellite had extended, RSA recognized a change in the radar pattern that proved the boom had stretched into place. A study of the radar echoes reflected from the first Nimbus weather satellite provided tumble and spin data that were unavailable...
...little as 10 million years-a brief interlude in the solar system's 4½-billion-year history-Triton could begin its final plunge toward Neptune's surface. Only one event could prevent the terrible impact, says McCord: a phenomenon that may have occurred before in the solar system. Neptune's gravity could break Triton into little pieces as it draws near, turning the satellite into a set of Saturnlike rings...
...most engaging subject is the fourth in the series - Swarthmore Col lege Astronomer Peter van de Kamp, 64, who in 1963 discovered "Barnard's Star B," the first planet outside the solar system. The program opens with Amateur Composer Van de Kamp at the pi ano, playing one of his own works; then he gets up, kisses his wife goodbye, throws on a scarf, and heads out for a hard night's day at the observatory, where the camera briskly retraces the hours of patient study that led Van de Kamp to his revolutionary discovery...
...vernier engines to fire briefly. Two of the engines performed obediently, but the third refused to work. The resulting unbalanced thrust threw Surveyor into a tumble that built up to 146 revolutions per minute after repeated but vain attempts to fire the balky engine. As the ship's solar panels whirled wildly, they were unable to fix on the sun and generate electricity, and the spacecraft's batteries began to fail...
Ever since 1949, when X rays from the sun were first detected, astronomers have been probing the skies for other X-ray sources outside the solar system. Their search was not rewarded until 1962, when more sensitive instruments picked up the first X-ray emissions from outside the solar system. But until this year, only one additional visible object had been definitely identified as an X-ray producer: the familiar Crab Nebula.* Though their relatively crude instruments sensed X rays from about two dozen other vaguely defined areas of the sky, astronomers have been un able to tell which...