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Hi Valarie,
The key here is not how far away from Earth a spacecraft is, but how far away from the Sun a spacecraft will have to travel. Since the intensity of sunlight falls of as the square of the distance away from the Sun, the further away a spacecraft will go from the Sun, the more difficult it is to use solar panels to provide ...
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Hi Becky,
I'm more of a magnetospheric physicist, so I don't know a lot about what new solar physics missions are currently in development. However, I do know about some of the missions currently in development to study the Earth's magnetosphere. Scientists and engineers working in the Department of Physics and Astronomy ...
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Hello,
In general, solar storms like coronal mass ejections and solar flares do not directly affect humans living on the surface of the Earth, since we are protected by the atmosphere from energetic solar particles. Coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and the geomagnetic storms that
they cause pose a much bigger risk to our ...
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Hi Clint,
NASA's eclipse web site has a handy tool you can use to find out when the next solar eclipse will be visible at various cities around the world. I just used this tool to see when the next solar eclipse will be visible in Miami, Florida. According to the web site, the next total solar eclipse visible in Miami, ...
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Hi Joshua,
I'm not a football fan, but some of the people I work with are. They were really excited last fall when the Iowa Hawkeyes found out they would play in the Orange Bowl.
Kris
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Hi Rotem,
I was in the choir when I was in elementary school, but I don't sing much now, except maybe along with my car radio when no one else is there. ;-)
Kris
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Hi Chris,
Human spaceflight, such as the Apollo missions to the Moon and the Space Shuttle Program, were some of the things that got me interested in science and engineering careers. In some ways, I am disappointed that this program was cancelled. However, I think the decision to cancel this program was probably ...
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Hi Laura,
I think this question may fall a little bit outside the areas of expertise of the Solar Week scientists. This is probably a better question to ask an archaeologist! I did take a few anthropology courses a long time ago when I was in college, so I will do the best I can to answer your question. As far as I can ...
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Hi Kayla,
This depends on what part of the Sun you are considering. Today in Iowa, it is about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 27 degrees Celsius, or 300 Kelvin (K). The Sun's photosphere (the visible surface of the Sun) has a temperature of about 6000 K, so it is about 20 times hotter than a warm day in Iowa. ...
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Hi Emilia,
The mass of all the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) put together is about 447 times the mass of the Earth. The mass of the Sun is about 333,000 times larger than the mass of the Earth, so the answer to your question is yes! The mass of the Sun is larger than the masses ...