News tagged with solar waves

Space weather expert has ominous forecast

A stream of highly charged particles from the sun is headed straight toward Earth, threatening to plunge cities around the world into darkness and bring the global economy screeching to a halt.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 08, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (9) | comments 7

Folding light: Wrinkles and twists boost power from solar panels

Taking their cue from the humble leaf, researchers have used microscopic folds on the surface of photovoltaic material to significantly increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells.

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Apr 27, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (15) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Robotic boats to travel across Pacific Ocean

(PhysOrg.com) -- Last Thursday, November 17, four unmanned Wave Gliders left the coast of San Francisco and began a 300-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. The vehicles, which are self-propelled and remotely ...

Electronics / Robotics

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 3 | with audio podcast weblog

Researchers adapt classic antennas to harness more power from the sun

Some solar devices, like calculators, only need a small panel of solar cells to function. But supplying enough power to meet all our daily needs would require enormous solar panels. And solar-powered energy collected by panels ...

Physics / General Physics

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Moon's shadow, like a ship, creates waves

During a solar eclipse, the Moon's passage overhead blocks out the majority of the Sun's light and casts a wide swath of the Earth into darkness. The land under the Moon's shadow receives less incoming energy ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 05, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

'Oscar Madison' approach to solar cells may outshine 'Felix Unger' design

Sometimes neatness may not be necessary. Researchers have demonstrated that a tangled coating of randomly positioned nanowires can increase solar cell efficiency by absorbing more light.

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Sep 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Cheaper and cleaner electricity from wave-powered ships (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the Clean Technology 2011 Conference and Expo in Boston, Andre Sharon presented a new concept of using ships equipped with a wave-power system to harvest energy and deliver it back to a ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Jul 20, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 35 | with audio podcast report

Dark fireworks on the sun

On June 7, 2011, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a flash of X-rays coming from the western edge of the solar disk. Registering only "M" (for medium) on the Richter scale of solar flares, the blast at first appeared to ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jul 12, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Nano-LEDs emit full visible spectrum of light

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists from Taiwan have designed and fabricated nano-sized light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that emit light spanning the entire visible spectrum. Although the tiny full-color LEDs aren't intended ...

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Jun 17, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 2 | with audio podcast feature

Solar Dynamics Observatory detects superfast solar waves moving at 2,000 km/sec

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on board NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), have detected quasi-periodic waves in the low solar corona that travel ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jun 15, 2011 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (4) | comments 1

Solar Dynamics Observatory catches 'surfer' waves on the Sun (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cue the surfing music. Scientists have spotted the iconic surfer's wave rolling through the atmosphere of the sun. This makes for more than just a nice photo-op: the waves hold clues as to ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jun 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Trapping a rainbow: Researchers slow broadband light waves with nanoplasmonic structures

A team of electrical engineers and chemists at Lehigh University have experimentally verified the "rainbow" trapping effect, demonstrating that plasmonic structures can slow down light waves over a broad range of wavelengths.

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Mar 14, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Solar Dynamics Observatory sundog mystery

]NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), best known for cutting-edge images of the sun, has made a discovery right here on Earth.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 14, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Cassini to probe Rhea for clues to Saturn rings

(PhysOrg.com) -- Saturn's icy moon Rhea might seem a strange place to look for clues to understanding the vast majestic rings encircling Saturn. But that's what NASA's Cassini spacecraft plans to do on its ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 11, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Global eruption rocks the sun

On August 1, 2010, an entire hemisphere of the sun erupted. Filaments of magnetism snapped and exploded, shock waves raced across the stellar surface, billion-ton clouds of hot gas billowed into space. Astronomers ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 14, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (22) | comments 43 | with audio podcast