A wide range of existing power technologies can make use of the solar energy reaching Earth. Basically, all those ways can be divided into two basic categories: transformed for use elsewhere or utilized directly – direct – and involving more than one transformation to reach a usable form – indirect. The Solar Chimney Power Plant (SCPP) is part of the solar thermal group of indirect solar conver...

Radiative fluxes obtained from a numerical model were compared with those obtained from aircraft-based radiometers. Separate comparisons were made for thermal infrared (wavelength X > 2.9g) and solar (2.9g > X > 0.6 g) radiation. The model ignores atmospheric scattering, and assumes that H20, C02, 03 and 02 are the only absorbers. Clouds are assumed to be black bodies in the thermal region, whi...

[1] While the Mars upper atmosphere is continuously bombarded by charged particles of solar and planetary origins, the energy flux carried is often not sufficient to significantly affect the neutral atmosphere. However, we show that this is not the case during major space weather events. By applying two Mars global models—a Monte Carlo model for simulating pickup O+ precipitation at the exobase...

Luhmann et al. (1) and Jakosky et al. (2) showed that the Martian atmosphere was eroded (sputtered) by energetic O ions that are formed from escaping 0 and accelerated back into the atmosphere by the solar wind fields. This collisional ejection process appears to explain measured isotope ratios for Ar and N in the martian atmosphere (2, 3) and it may affect the early evolution of this atmospher...

The heating of the solar corona has been a fundamental astrophysical issue for over sixty years. Over the last decade in particular, space-based solar observatories (Yohkoh, SOHOandTRACE) have revealed the complex and often subtlemagnetic-field and plasma interactions throughout the solar atmosphere in unprecedented detail. It is now established that any energy release mechanism is magnetic in ...

The existence of the Sun's hot atmosphere and the solar wind acceleration continues to be an outstanding problem in solar-astrophysics. Although magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modes and dissipation of magnetic energy contribute to heating and the mass cycle of the solar atmosphere, yet direct evidence of such processes often generates debate. Ground-based 1-m Swedish Solar Telescope (SST)/CRISP, Hα ...

2,2',7,7'-Tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD), the prevalent organic hole transport material used in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells and perovskite-absorber solar cells, relies on an uncontrolled oxidative process to reach appreciable conductivity. This work presents the use of a dicationic salt of spiro-OMeTAD, named spiro(TFSI)2, as a facile means ...

[1] We present measurements of the density of the Martian atmosphere at 400 km altitude. Our analysis used radio tracking data to perform precise orbit determination on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft between March 2002 and November 2005. Recent improvements in a priori physical models make it possible to isolate the contribution of the atmospheric drag from the various forces acting on the spacecr...

The SOlar Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment (SOLSTICE) on the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) measures stars in the ultraviolet (250 nm) via stellar occultation. While the satellite observes these stars, the line-of-sight towards the star passes through the Earthʼs atmosphere and the signal from the star decreases due to Ozone absorption, however, some of these signals act...

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) detection of an extra-solar planet atmosphere in 2001 was a landmark step forward for the characterization of extrasolar planets. HST detected the trace element sodium, via the neutral atomic resonance doublet at 593 nm, in the tran-siting extrasolar giant planet HD 209458 b. In this paper I discuss the significance of this first ever extrasolar planet atmospher...