Solar Wind

The rolling blackouts that swept California on Monday were sparked in part by a crucial group of small energy producers that have cut supplies to the state's utilities because they are not being paid. California's power supply dropped Monday when alternative producers reduced output or went offline, cutting their usual deliveries to utilities in half. The lost electricity--more than seven times the cuts the companies were making just weeks ago--could have served 3 million homes.

A sun-watching satellite malfunctioned Friday, moments after its release from the shuttle Columbia, and astronauts struggled in vain to recapture the craft as it spun uselessly in space, NASA officials said. The space agency lost any chance of conducting solar observations with the satellite during this mission but was considering a spacewalk Monday night to grab the 3,000-pound Spartan spacecraft by hand.

A solar observatory hurtled toward the sun Saturday after rocketing into space on a $1-billion mission. An unmanned Atlas rocket carrying the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, called Soho, blasted off at 12:08 a.m. PST from Cape Canaveral Air Station. Within a few hours, the spacecraft was boosted out of Earth's orbit and heading toward the sun, with its power-generating solar panels and antennas fully extended.

The space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts completed their first big job in orbit Friday, releasing a satellite to study charged particles hurtling from the sun that can disrupt radio communications and electrical systems on Earth. For two days, the $8-million satellite, called Spartan, will observe the so-called solar wind blowing from the sun. Astronaut Michael Gernhardt used Endeavour's 50-foot crane to lift the shiny, boxy Spartan from the shuttle's cargo bay 24 hours into the flight.

A NASA spacecraft called Wind rocketed into orbit Tuesday on a three-year journey to study the electrified particles that stream from the sun. The unmanned Delta rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, 10 miles from the Kennedy Space Center, where shuttle Atlantis awaits a Thursday launch. Eight instruments--six U.S., one French and the first Russian instrument to fly on an American spacecraft--will analyze solar wind, the energy hurtling from the sun at more than 1 million m.

Discovery's astronauts heaved a glistening, gold-colored spacecraft into orbit Sunday for two days of solar study. "Sure was pretty to see that thing go," Commander Kenneth Cameron said. The $6-million reusable spacecraft, about the size of a large air conditioner, should be retrieved by the crew Tuesday. Called Spartan, it contains two telescopes for observing the sun's blazing halo, or corona.

A Lancaster elementary school will become the first in the nation to obtain part of its electrical power from on-site solar panels and a wind turbine, a demonstration project that also will become part of the school's science and math curriculum, school officials said this week.

It's one thing to board a cruise ship as big as the Trump Tower and go barging off into the sea equipped with swimming pools, shuffleboard and orchestras. A more serene (and environmentally friendly) alternative is the wind- and sun-powered 37-foot Solar Wind trimaran, which plies the Sea of Cortez between Baja California and Mexico, cruising quietly. (The three-hulled trimaran is more stable than a monohull boat of the same size.

Astronomers have found that the moon has a tail. Like the luminous plumes that stretch out from comets, a glowing 15,000-mile tail of sodium atoms streams from the moon, blown away from the sun by the solar wind--the constant flow of particles, including protons and electrons, that stream out from the sun. The tail is not visible to the naked eye, but instruments can see the faint orange glow of sodium.

Ever since Iraq overran the rich oil fields of Kuwait, the phone in Kathleen Flanigan's Westwood office has not stopped ringing. "People keep calling just to ask about our technology," explains the spokeswoman for one of the country's most successful solar power producers, Los Angeles' Luz International. "It's really picked up since Aug. 2."