solar

flare, solar: see chromosphere.

Flux of particles, chiefly protons, electrons, and helium nuclei, accelerated by the hot solar corona's high temperatures to speeds high enough to allow them to escape the Sun. Solar flares increase its intensity. The solar wind deflects planets' magnetospheres and the ion tails of comets away from the Sun. The uninterrupted portion of the solar wind continues to travel to a distance of about 110–170 astronomical units, where it cools and eventually diffuses into interstellar space. Seealso heliopause.

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The Sun, its eight major planets, the dwarf planets and small bodies, and interplanetary dust and gas under the Sun's gravitational control. Another component of the solar system is the solar wind. The Sun contains more than 99percnt of the mass of the solar system; most of the rest is distributed among the planets, with Jupiter containing about 70percnt. According to the prevailing theory, the solar system originated from the solar nebula. Seealso asteroid; Centaur object; Ceres; comet; Earth; Eris; Jupiter; Kuiper belt; Mars; Mercury; meteorite; Neptune; Oort cloud; Pluto; Saturn; Uranus; Venus.

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Arched stream of hot gas projecting from the Sun's surface into the chromosphere or corona. Prominences can be hundreds of thousands of miles long and can be seen with the unaided eye during a total eclipse. They appear to lie along and are supported by loops in the Sun's magnetic field, where they may remain for days to months.

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Radiation from the Sun that can produce heat, generate electricity, or cause chemical reactions. Solar collectors collect solar radiation and transfer it as heat to a carrier fluid. It can then be used for heating. Solar cells convert solar radiation directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect. Solar energy is inexhaustible and nonpolluting, but converting solar radiation to electricity is not yet commercially competitive, because of the high cost of producing large-scale solar cell arrays and the inherent inefficiency in converting light to electricity.

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Gaseous cloud from which, in the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system, the Sun and planets formed by condensation. In 1755 Immanuel Kant suggested that a nebula gradually pulled together by its own gravity developed into the Sun and planets. Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace, in 1796 proposed a similar model, in which a rotating and contracting cloud of gas—the young Sun—shed concentric rings of matter that condensed into the planets. But James Clerk Maxwell showed that, if all the matter in the known planets had once been distributed this way, shearing forces would have prevented such condensation. Another objection was that the Sun has less angular momentum than the theory seems to require. In the early 20th century most astronomers preferred the collision theory: that the planets formed as a result of a close approach to the Sun by another star. Eventually, however, stronger objections were mounted to the collision theory than to the nebular hypothesis, and a modified version of the latter—in which a rotating disk of matter gave rise to the planets through successively larger agglomerations, from dust grains through planetesimals and protoplanets—became the prevailing theory of the solar system's origin.

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Use of solar radiation to heat water or air in buildings. There are two types: passive and active. Passive heating relies on architectural design; the building's siting, orientation, layout, materials, and construction are utilized to maximize the heating effect of sunlight falling on it. A well-insulated building with a large south-facing window, for instance, can trap heat on sunny days and reduce reliance on gas, oil, or electricity. Brick, stone, or tile capacity walls are often incorporated to absorb the sun's energy and radiate it into the interior, usually after a time lag of several hours. In active solar heating, mechanical means are used to collect, store, and distribute solar energy. In liquid-based systems, a blackened metal plate on the exterior absorbs sunlight and traps heat, which is transferred to a carrier fluid. Alternatively, fluid may be pumped through a glass tube or volume of space onto which sunlight has been focused by mirrors. After picking up heat from the collector, the warm fluid is pumped to an insulated storage tank. The system can supply a home with hot water from the tank or provide space heating with the warmed water flowing through tubes in floors and ceilings.

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Sudden intense brightening of a small part of the Sun's surface, often near a sunspot group. Flares develop in a few minutes and may last several hours, releasing intense X rays and streams of energetic particles. They appear to be connected with changes in the Sun's magnetic fields during the solar cycle. The ejected particles take a day or two to reach the vicinity of Earth, where they can disrupt radio communications and cause auroras, and may pose a radiation hazard to astronauts.

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Veneration of the sun or its representation as a deity. It appears in several early cultures, notably in ancient Egypt, Indo-Europe, and Mesoamerica, where urban civilizations were combined with a strong ideology of sacred kingship, in which kings ruled by the power of the sun and claimed descent from it. The imagery of the sun as the ruler of both the upper and the lower world, which he visits daily, was prominent. Sun heroes and deities also figure in many mythologies, including Indo-Iranian, Greco-Roman, and Scandinavian. In late Roman history, sun worship was of such importance that it was later called “solar monotheism.” Seealso Amaterasu, Re, Shamash, Sol, Surya, Tonatiuh.

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Period in which several important kinds of solar activity repeat, discovered in 1843 by Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (1789–1875). Lasting about 22 years on average, it includes two 11-year cycles of sunspots, whose magnetic polarities alternate between the Sun's northern and southern hemispheres, and two peaks and two declines in the phenomena (e.g., solar prominences, auroras) that vary in the same period. Attempts have been made to connect the solar cycle to various other phenomena, including possible slight variations in the diameter of the Sun, sequences of annual growth rings in trees, and even the stock market's rise and fall.

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Outermost region of the Sun's (or any star's) atmosphere, consisting of plasma. The Sun's corona has a temperature of about 3.6 million °F (2 million °C) and a very low density. Extending more than 8 million mi (13 million km) from the photosphere, it has no definite boundaries, continually varying in size and shape as it is affected by the Sun's magnetic field. The solar wind is formed by expansion of coronal gases. Only about half as bright as the full moon, the corona is overwhelmed by the brilliance of the solar surface and normally not visible to the unaided eye, but a total eclipse permits naked-eye observations.

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Any device that directly converts the energy in light into electrical energy through the process of photovoltaics (see photovoltaic effect). Solar cells do not use chemical reactions to produce electric power, and they have no moving parts. Most solar cells are designed for converting sunlight into electricity. In large arrays, which may contain many thousands of individual cells, they can function as central electric power stations analogous to nuclear, coal-, or oil-fired power plants. Much smaller assemblies of solar cells are used to provide electric power in remote locations including space satellites; because they have no moving parts that could require service or fuels that would require replenishment, solar cells are ideal for providing power in space.

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A solar powered pump is a pump running on the power of the sun. A solar powered pump can be more environmentaly friendly and economical in its operation compared to pumps powered by an ICE or internal combustion engine .

Components

Unlike a normal pump (such as positive displacement pumps, ...), the solar powered pump is actually a more of a dictionary phrase than a technical one. It is only used to describe that there's a pump, being powered by another device (such as solar panels), being powered by the sun.

A solar powered pump thus consist of 2 parts :

• the actual pump
• the energy source being powered by the sun

Solar pump installations

Solar PV water pumping systems are used for irrigation and drinking water in India. The majority of the pumps are fitted with a 200 watt - 3,000 watt motor are powered with 1,800 Wp PV array which can deliver about 140,000 liters of water/day from a total head of 10 meters. By 30th September, 2006, a total of 7,068 solar PV water pumping systems have been installed.

References

External links

• Solco Solar Pumps - commercial site (Australian company Solco).
• Solar Pumping Calculator - commercial site (Australian company Energy Matters).