The Very-high-resolution Advanced ULtraviolet Telescope (VAULT) experiment was successfully launched on 7 May 1999 on a Black Brant sounding rocket vehicle from White Sands Missile Range. The instrument consists of a 30 cm UV diffraction limited telescope followed by a two-grating, zero-dispersion spectroheliograph tuned to isolate the solar Lα emission line. During the flight, the instrument s...

We treat in detail positron production from the decay of radioactive nuclei produced in nuclear reactions of accelerated 3He. Because of their large cross sections and low threshold energies, these reactions can significantly contribute to positron production in solar flares with accelerated-particle compositions enriched in 3He. The addition of these 3He reactions extends earlier calculations ...

Atmospheric chemical disequilibrium has been proposed as a method for detecting extraterrestrial biospheres from exoplanet observations. Chemical disequilibrium is potentially a generalized biosignature since it makes no assumptions about particular biogenic gases or metabolisms. Here, we present the first rigorous calculations of the thermodynamic chemical disequilibrium in Solar System atmosp...

Until now, solar γ-ray and neutron emissions have only been detected during times of intense solar activity, specifically, during solar flares. These emissions arise from the interaction of accelerated solar particles (both electrons and ions) with the ambient solar material. However, there are several reasons to expect that γ-ray emission might also be detectable at times when there is no sign...

We briefly discuss GLAST’s capabilities for observing high-energy radiation from various energetic phenomena in our solar system. These emissions include: bremsstrahlung, nuclear-line and pion-decay gamma-radiation, and neutrons from solar flares; bremsstrahlung and pion-decay gamma radiation from cosmic-ray interactions with the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth’s atmosphere; and inverse Compton ra...

Solar energy reaching our planet is partly reflected to space, partly absorbed in the atmosphere, and partly absorbed at the earth’s surface. This partitioning of the solar energy incident at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), hereafter called solar energy disposition (SED), is determined by the optical properties of the atmospheric column, which, in turn, is influenced by the SED. The key variab...

Silicon carbide (SiC) has been prepared successfully using concentrated solar energy provided by the IER-UNAM solar furnace. This has led to the development of a low CO2 emissions process for the production of this material via carbothermic reduction of a silica/carbon (SiO2/C) nanocomposite, which has shown a more reactive carbon for formation of composite, being more thermally stable. Silica ...