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The sun will come out tomorrow. But where?
by Amanda Arnold | March 17, 2010
I just learned that the sunniest city in the United States is Yuma, Ariz. What’s in Yuma, Ariz.? I don’t care. It has sunshine. Put me on a plane to Yuma, Ariz., which “receives 90 percent of possible sunshine” in a year, according to USATODAY.com. And, just between us, I’m not even 100 percent sure what that means. But it sounds good. It sounds like if I were in Yuma, I’d be squinting and accumulating freckles.
You Asked: Why can’t we send a spacecraft toward the sun? — Akshay, Nagpur, India Marshall Brain Answers: It’s not easy, but scientists actually have been able to send a spacecraft toward the sun. It is the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft, which lifted off in 2004. This is actually the [...]
Your goal in this game is to get a planet into a stable orbit around a sun. Having accomplished that, you can try to get a moon orbiting the planet around the sun: My solar System 2.0 One thing to note – in our solar system, the sun’s mass (2×10^30 kg) is gigagtic compared to [...]
Podcast Goodness: Organ Donation and The Sun
by Charles W. Bryant | January 15, 2010
Good day, sirs and madams… I said GOOD DAY. I hope the sun is shining in your neck of the woods. It’s Friday at SYSK headquarters and things have finally thawed out here in the previously frozen South. If you wonder why I always seem to lead the Friday podcast recap with a weather report, [...]
You Asked: Is the world going to end in 2012? If not 2012, is it ever going to end? — Blanche, Topeka, KS Marshall Brain Answered: There seems to be a lot of hype around 2012 but this kind of hype is pretty common. You may recall that the world was also going to end [...]
I spent the past weekend boating, floating and jet skiing around a lake in picturesque Kentucky. And while it was highly relaxing, a constant question nagged at me as I lolled about in the warm, waterfont sun. Had I applied enough waterproof SPF 45 sunscreen to ward off those vicious UV rays? Was I a sitting duck in water, just asking for a blistering burn?
Not wishing to ruin my getaway weekend by scorching my skin in the sun, I reapplied lotion like a maniac. And while I managed to dodge any significant sunburn, the experience made me wonder just how often you’re supposed to reapply.
According to Steve Lohr of The New York Times, Sun Microsystems and IBM are in talks about a $7 billion acquisition.
That’s a lot of money. But it’s a big deal. It’d bring together two of the biggest names in computer servers, and as Lohr pointed out, it could bring up some antitrust hurdles for the two companies to overcome, should they reach a deal. If you’re a Sun shareholder, it looks particularly good for you; shares were up 65.3 percent this morning, but IBM’s were down 2.2 percent.
IBM is really into cloud computing, where your data and sometimes your applications are all stored on servers via the network, or the Internet. Sun is scheduled to throw its hat into the ring today, Charles Cooper at CNET wrote Tuesday. At the company’s CommunityOne event, Sun will disclose its application programming interface (API) that will enable developers to write applications for the Sun cloud computing platform.
As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, particles in the air scatter blue light more efficiently than any other color in the light spectrum, creating a blue sky. Learn more about the sky and light in this Brainstuff podcast.
Good sunglasses have several different technologies at work. In this HowStuffWorks podcast, you’ll learn more about sunglasses, polarization, and tint.
Planets outside our solar system were not discovered until 1991. Learn more about discovering extrasolar planets in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
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