Solar System

If there is one thing that scientists have learned to expect from the Voyager missions' 12-year odyssey, it has been the unexpected, as the striking pictures sent back from the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune generated surprise after surprise. Those large gaseous planets have conformed to the basic outlines scientists had drawn from previous observations, but Voyager pictures of their moons and rings provided dramatic detail. Photos of Jupiter's moon Io, for example, spotted nine active volcanoes on its surface, including one that spewed sulfur-laden ash over an area four- fifths the size of Texas.

The stars come out at the Franklin Institute this holiday weekend for the premiere of Astro Alphabet Soup, a new children's show at Fels Planetarium. Young astronomers can learn fun facts about the solar system as they explore outer space with Zoop, a fanciful creature. Featuring the ABCs as a guide, the 40-minute show introduces children to the words and names used in astronomy. Astro Alphabet Soup at Franklin Institute, Fels Planetarium, 20th Street and the Parkway, at 11:15 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday; weekends through March 1992.

Like Rodney Dangerfield, Pluto, our solar system's puniest planet (for now, anyway) don't get no respect. Farthest from the sun, the perpetually gloomy planet is the only one that has never been visited by a spacecraft - one built by humans, anyway. But scientists long have questioned its legitimacy among the planets. Is it an escaped Neptunian moon? Is it just a big-sized glob from the Kuiper Belt, the solar-system junkyard just beyond Pluto's orbit? Whatever it is, say detractors, it ain't a planet.

The first cluster of planets outside of our solar system has been discovered orbiting a star no bigger than the city of Philadelphia, a Pennsylvania State University astronomer said yesterday. "This is it," said Alexander Wolszozan, a Penn State astronomy professor. "We finally have solid, irrefutable evidence that there are planets outside of our solar system. " A scientific paper describing the discovery appears in today's issue of Science. It amplifies findings that were announced earlier this year at a scientific conference in Aspen, Colo.

On Christmas Day, 1642, a boy was born under difficult circumstances. He was premature and given little chance of surviving; it was said he was so small he could be fitted into a quart pot. This young boy's father died a few months before his birth, and the boy's mother left when he was very young to pursue her own life in another city. After eight years, his mother returned, but shortly thereafter he was sent away to school, returning briefly at 17 to manage the family farm, and finally going off to college on what we would now call a scholarship.

  At NewAge Industries, what goes on under the roof has been the priority at the plastic-tubing manufacturer for 57 years. On Wednesday, all attention will be on the roof itself. There, a one-megawatt solar system consisting of 4,082 panels - a monster in terms of rooftop photovoltaic arrays and believed to be the biggest of its kind in Bucks County - will be the toast of local and state dignitaries, green-business advocates, and NewAge's 100 employees. For a plant that uses two megawatts of power a year to churn out tubing with widespread applicability - from pharmaceutical laboratories to McDonald's milk-shake machines - the solar project represents a serious cost-savings opportunity.

Even in pictures, the surface of the sun inspires a sense of the forbidden - a subconscious fear of burnt corneas and blindness. But seen safely through the eyes of a spacecraft called SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), the sun appears as never before - its surface roiling, its wispy atmosphere erupting with flares. Some of SOHO's instruments monitor vibrations in the sun to see below the surface, mapping its internal structure. In a control room at the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center here, SOHO's pictures are beamed back to a computer screen, where scientists can see them, almost live.

After physicist Lawrence Krauss published a book called The Physics of Star Trek, he was sought out by NASA's administrator and asked to speak in front of meetings of NASA engineers and scientists. NASA is aiming to make science imitate science fiction - sending real spaceships beyond the confines of our little solar system and out toward the stars. Krauss told the NASA engineers that almost nothing on Star Trek would work in any sort of practical way - not antimatter propulsion or inertial dampers or warp drive.

FAR-FLUNG PLANET Astronomers from the Extrasolar Research Corporation in Pasadena, Calif., said recently that for the first time they have directly seen and photographed a planet outside our solar system. (Insert "The X-Files" theme music here.) NASA officials said the picture, taken through the Hubble Space Telescope, is the first that appears to show direct evidence of the existence of a planet outside the solar system, and I think that's a great discovery. Maybe one day, as technology advances, kids taking science class will not only have to memorize the planets in our own solar system, but those in other solar systems as well.

LOS ANGELES - The NASA spacecraft Juno, en route to an unprecedented exploration of Jupiter and the origins of the solar system, lifted off Friday from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Juno launched aboard an Atlas 5 rocket at 12:25 p.m. into clear skies. The craft soared over the Atlantic then conducted two "burns" to set it on the right trajectory for a five-year, 1.7 billion-mile trip to Jupiter. "Today, with the launch of the Juno spacecraft, NASA began a journey to yet another new frontier," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

WASHINGTON - They came from Mars, not in peace, but in pieces. Scientists have confirmed that 15 pounds of rock collected recently in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower in July. It was only the fifth time that scientists chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people had witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks were not discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December. The find is an important opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars' potential for life.

LOS ANGELES - The NASA spacecraft Juno, en route to an unprecedented exploration of Jupiter and the origins of the solar system, lifted off Friday from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Juno launched aboard an Atlas 5 rocket at 12:25 p.m. into clear skies. The craft soared over the Atlantic then conducted two "burns" to set it on the right trajectory for a five-year, 1.7 billion-mile trip to Jupiter. "Today, with the launch of the Juno spacecraft, NASA began a journey to yet another new frontier," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

NEW YORK - Like a poodle on a leash, a tiny asteroid runs ahead of Earth on the planet's yearlong strolls around the sun, scientists report. The discovery of this companion, which measures only about 300 yards across, makes Earth the fourth planet in the solar system that's known to share its orbit with an asteroid. Imagine Earth and the asteroid traveling around a clock face, with the sun in the middle. Generally, the asteroid runs about two numbers ahead. Sometimes, however, it ranges so far ahead that it's on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, said Martin Connors of Canada's Athabasca University in Alberta.

  At NewAge Industries, what goes on under the roof has been the priority at the plastic-tubing manufacturer for 57 years. On Wednesday, all attention will be on the roof itself. There, a one-megawatt solar system consisting of 4,082 panels - a monster in terms of rooftop photovoltaic arrays and believed to be the biggest of its kind in Bucks County - will be the toast of local and state dignitaries, green-business advocates, and NewAge's 100 employees. For a plant that uses two megawatts of power a year to churn out tubing with widespread applicability - from pharmaceutical laboratories to McDonald's milk-shake machines - the solar project represents a serious cost-savings opportunity.

THE GIZMO: There's nothing like a major power-plant disaster to get a person thinking about finding safer, "alternative" sources of energy. So, when I heard that the solar power trade show PV America was meeting in town, I rushed over for a crash course in buying and installing a photovoltaic panel-based home power system. IS MY SITE SUITABLE? Solar panels work best pointing due south and angled toward the sun with minimal shade obstruction. Only about 25 percent of U.S. houses meet the criteria for a roof-mounted system.

The solar-energy industry is growing rapidly and creating thousands of jobs nationwide. But Pennsylvania is falling farther behind in the race for these green jobs. When it comes to producing clean electricity from the sun, other states are leaping ahead of the commonwealth. Pennsylvania requires that only 0.5 percent of the electricity we use will come from the sun as of 2021. By comparison, New Jersey will require that 4 percent of its electricity come from solar generation by 2021, Delaware has set a target of 3.5 percent by 2025, and Maryland's standard is 2 percent by 2022.

At Alvah Bushnell, the product line has remained virtually unchanged since the manufacturer of accordion folders first applied for a patent in 1919. The Philadelphia company has been run by the same family for six generations. The workers on the factory floor tend to stick around, too: One folder assembler retired after 70 years on the job. "We are proud to be old-fashioned," the company boasts on its Web site, a rare dalliance with something new. No wonder Rick Bushnell considers his next step "scary.

Gov. Rendell stood on the deck of a Roxborough home last month talking about how the $100 million in the Pennsylvania Sunshine rebate program would make it possible for homeowners to afford an energy-saving solar system. In Malvern, the $800,000 solar system that Siemens Medical Solutions installed in 2006 is yielding $18,000 a year in savings. With a state grant reducing the cost to $400,000, building manager Kevin Matthews expects the system to pay for itself by 2013. To the 80 or so electrical contractors, suppliers, and electricians' union officials at a seminar hosted by the National Electrical Contractors Association's Penn-Del Jersey chapter yesterday, these examples prove that the solar-energy market is ready to yield its financial promise.

Things have changed since the original Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock set off to seek out new life and new civilizations. Back in the 1960s, while the Enterprise crew was exploring a galaxy full of exotic life-forms, real astronomers were stuck in a solar system with eight desolate-looking neighbors and no signs of any planets beyond. Now, finally, astronomers are starting to zero in on Earth-like worlds orbiting other stars. Some of the more recent finds even look potentially habitable.