Science News

The protective magnetic field shrouding the early Earth was likely only half as strong as it is today, a new study suggests.

Earths magnetic field is generated by the turbulent, convective motions of the planets molten core. The field extends around the Earth for quite some distance into space until it meets the suns incoming solar wind (the stream of charged solar particles constantly flowing away from the sun).

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Cityscapes of glass-clad buildings gleaming in the sun make Anna Dyson think about wasted energy.

A prototype gets a real-world tryout after the opening this week of an eco-friendly research building in Syracuse. Researchers at CASE - a collaborative research group involving Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy and the international architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill - call it a step toward exploiting the huge but largely untapped “green” resource of building exteriors.

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Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd, a solar equipment maker that recently relocated to Toronto from Calgary, may soon land its first large-scale orders in its new home province, the worlds newest “go-to” region for solar power.

Inverters are key components of power systems that turn the suns rays into electricity as they convert the direct current output generated by the solar panels into the alternating current that the power grid runs on.

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Comets have a reputation of being outer solar system natives that were long thought to be made up of pristine remnants of the building blocks of our suns planets and moons.

The particle under study, dubbed “Coki,” was picked up from Comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt 2″) by NASAs Stardust mission.

But new analysis of a tiny piece of one comet shows that some of its material actually formed in the inner solar system - just like that of meteorites - before it was kicked outward and incorporated into the comet.

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A skipper hoping to become the first to sail round the world using solar power said his catamaran could carve a wake for pollution-free shipping as he unveiled the record-breaking yacht Thursday.

PlanetSolar, a 31- by 15-metre (100 by 50 foot) white catamaran, has been designed to reach a top speed of around 15 knots, equivalent to 25 kilometres (15 miles) per hour, and can hold up to 50 passengers.

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A subsidiary of oil giant Chevron Corp. plans to build what New Mexico officials say will be the largest solar power plant in the nation that uses lenses to focus sunlight onto solar cells.

The 1-megawatt plant will be built on 20 acres of the company’s molybdenum mine near Questa (KWES’-tah) in northern New Mexico and produce enough electricity to power the roughly 350 homes in the village.

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Chevron Corp. said Tuesday it will build a solar power plant near a mine that a subsidiary operates in New Mexico.

San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron, the country’s second-largest oil company, didn’t disclose how much it would cost to build.

The plant will generate electricity by spreading 175 solar panels across 20 acres at Chevron’s molybdenum mine in the village of Questa.

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The German government wants to slash its support to the solar energy industry to prevent the market from overheating, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkels CDU party said Tuesday.

Germany is the worlds leading market for solar panels, but the aid led to farmers installing them on arable fields and boosted the global market, which has in turn helped Chinese producers that have begun to hurt German rivals.

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A new solar cell can produce the same amount of energy as the best conventional solar panels while using less expensive material.

“It could be extremely rugged - you could roll it up, even perforate it, shoot holes in it with a gun, and itd still operate, whereas normal crystalline silicon would just shatter like glass,” said researcher Harry Atwater, an applied physicist at the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena, Calif.

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NASA launched a science satellite on Thursday to keep a close watch on the sun and help improve forecasts of the solar storms that can disrupt navigational signals, satellites and power grids.

The alliance is a joint venture between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, lifted off aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket, made by United Launch Alliance, at 10:23 a.

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