Word: reflectors
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Distant Landscapes. The Russians also made a bow to international cooperation in space. Lunokhod carried a French-built array of 14 corner-shaped mirrors designed to reflect long-distance laser beams from observatories in southern France and the Crimea. A similar reflector left behind by Apollo 11 on the Sea of Tranquility has already enabled U.S. scientists to measure the distance between earth and moon with an accuracy of less than a foot. Indeed, U.S. observers think that the Soviets might be interested in testing such a device as a means of navigating future moon robots...
...final contribution, Pedrick, whose tongue is, of course, in cheek, suggests equipping the ball with an interior wire mesh. The mesh would act as a reflector, or target, for a portable radar unit stashed inside the golf bag. Thus the ball could be easily recovered if, despite all of Pedrick's technological aids, it went astray in the woods...
Howling Blizzards. On its lofty perch, Mauna Kea Observatory lies above 40% of the earth's obscuring atmosphere and provides its telescopes (an 88-in. reflector and two smaller 24-in. mirrors) with a spectacularly clear view of the stars and planets. Pictures of Jupiter already shot through one of its smaller telescopes are considered among the best ever obtained. Less than 20 degrees north of the equator, the observatory can explore far more of the southern skies than most installations in the Northern Hemisphere. The site is also favored by an unusual local weather condition: a layer...
Delicate Adjustment. The furnace's appearance is as spectacular as its power. Its glittering eight-story-high parabolic reflector (roughly half the size of a football field) towers over Odeillo's centuries-old houses. Anchored against a reinforced concrete office and laboratory building, the huge concave mirror consists of 8,570 individual reflectors. For the furnace to operate efficiently, these small (18 inches square) mirrors must be precisely adjusted so that their light will converge exactly at the parabola's focal point 59 ft. in front of the giant reflector. Only half of the mirrors have been...
...huge to follow the sun itself, the parabolic reflector depends on the help of 63 smaller mirrors set in eight rows on a terraced slope in front of it. Called heliostats (from the Greek helios, sun; statos, to cause to stand still), they track the solar disk across the sky, capture its light and bounce it in parallel beams into the big mirror. The system involves some ingenious engineering. Each heliostat is controlled by its own photoelectric cells. Whenever one of the hehostats (each of which is made 180 individual mirrors) loses its lock on the sun, these tiny electric...