Word: solarized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...think hurricanes and tornadoes are powerful, take a look at the sun's periodic storms. Kicking up twisting arcs of fiery gases, solar eruptions from that great thermonuclear reactor in the sky can stretch as far as the distance from Earth to the moon. The most intense outbursts explode a billion tons of material off the sun's searing (11,000[degrees]F) surface at speeds of millions of miles an hour. If these electrically charged particles happen to slam against Earth's atmosphere, they can imperil astronauts, push satellites out of orbit or fry their circuitry. If they...
Last week they seemed a little closer to getting their wish. At a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Kyoto, Japan, and at a special NASA briefing in Washington, solar physicists ecstatically reported results from a new generation of solar observatories--a NASA-European Space Agency satellite known as soho (for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), which has been circling the sun since December 1995, and the National Science Foundation's global network of ground-based solar stations. By keeping a day-to-day eye on solar weather features such as the sun's "trade winds" and "jet streams," these...
...data several times. The scientists also got a close-up look at the sun's lower-latitude trade winds, whose existence they had hitherto only suspected. The new probes not only confirmed these suspicions but also showed that the winds--actually, great bands of plasma slightly warmer than neighboring solar gases--dive deep into the solar interior, itself a mass of gases, then flow back toward the equator, creating a circular gyre reminiscent of Earth's great ocean currents, such as those that sweep the Atlantic and Pacific. "We used to think the inside of the sun was fairly simple...
...addition, scientists have begun to get a better understanding of the sun's magnetic properties, which may hold the answer to what generates solar storms. While Earth's north and south magnetic poles have remained in place for the past 30,000 years, the sun's poles flip-flop every 11 years--so that the needles of any would-be solar compasses would swing 180[degrees]. The reversal is preceded by a kind of magnetic sparkling across the sun's surface--as if it were suddenly the site of millions of toy magnets, each with its own poles...
...least it wasn't for nothing: before closing the hatch again at 3 a.m. EDT, the pair manually realigned two solar panels on the Spektr module, which should boost their power supply to about 90 percent. Another spacewalk is tentatively planned for next month. TIME Daliy's Mir coverage