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    In Silicon Valley, a Rogue Plan to Alter the Climate

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    SARATOGA, Calif. — A silver Winnebago pulled up to a self storage warehouse on the outskirts of a Silicon Valley suburb and three renegade climate entrepreneurs piled out, all mohawks, mustaches and camouflage shorts.Working swiftly, the men unlocked a storage unit crammed with drones and canisters of pressurized gas. Using a dolly, they wheeled out four tanks containing sulfur dioxide and helium, and stacked them on the floor of the camper van. Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they were on the road, headed for the golden hills near the Pacific Ocean.With their jury-rigged equipment and the confidence that comes with having raised more than $1 million in venture capital, they were executing a plan to release pollutants into the sky, all in the name of combating global warming.“We’re stealth,” said Luke Iseman, one of the co-founders of Make Sunsets, delighting in their anonymity as he rode in the back. “This looks like just another R.V.”Make Sunsets is one of the most unusual start-ups in a region brimming with wild ideas. Iseman, 41, and his co-founder, Andrew Song, 38, claim that by releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, they can reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space, thereby cooling the planet.It’s a gutsy undertaking, yet it has at least a partial grounding in science. For 50 years, climate scientists have suggested that releasing aerosols into the stratosphere could act as a buffer and reduce the heat from the sun. Volcanic eruptions have temporarily cooled the planet this way in the past, but no one has attempted to intentionally replicate the effect at scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mars Got Cooked During a Recent Solar Storm

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      Days after light shows filled Earth’s skies with wonder, the red planet was hit by another powerful outburst of the sun.The sun fired off a volley of radiation-riddled outbursts in May. When they slammed into Earth’s magnetic bubble, the world was treated to iridescent displays of the northern and southern lights. But our planet wasn’t the only one in the solar firing line.A few days after Earth’s light show, another series of eruptions screamed out of the sun. This time, on May 20, Mars was blitzed by a beast of a storm.Observed from Mars, “this was the strongest solar energetic particle event we’ve seen to date,” said Shannon Curry, the principal investigator of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, or MAVEN, at the University of California, Berkeley.When the barrage arrived, it set off an aurora that enveloped Mars from pole to pole in a shimmering glow. If they were standing on the Martian surface, “astronauts could see these auroras,” Dr. Curry said. Based on scientific knowledge of atmospheric chemistry, she and other scientists say, observers on Mars would have seen a jade-green light show, although no color cameras picked it up on the surface.The specks in the sequence of images in this video were caused by charged particles from a solar storm that hit a navigation camera of the Curiosity Mars rover on May 20.NASA/JPL-CaltechBut it’s very fortunate that no astronauts were there. Mars’s thin atmosphere and the absence of a global magnetic shield meant that its surface, as registered by NASA’s Curiosity rover, was showered by a radiation dose equivalent to 30 chest X-rays — not a lethal dose, but certainly not pleasant to the human constitution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Northern Lights Set to Return Tonight as Extreme Solar Storm Continues

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      Electrical utilities said they weathered earlier conditions as persistent geomagnetic storms were expected to cause another light show in evening skies.Night skies in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere are expected to bloom again on Saturday night with the vivid colors of the northern lights, or aurora borealis, as a powerful geomagnetic storm caused by a hyperactive sun persists through the weekend.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors space weather, said in an update on Saturday that it continued to observe solar activity that could lead to periods of “severe-extreme” geomagnetic storms. The federal agency first issued a warning on Friday as bursts of material from the sun’s surface traveled into Earth’s atmosphere, causing irregularities in power, navigation and communication systems.Major power utilities had largely prepared their electrical grids for the solar storm, and their customers were unaffected.For most people, the solar storm was a gift: It caused ribbons of pink, purple and green light across night skies of much of the United States, Canada and Europe. Where evening skies are clear on Saturday, the lights can be expected again.Known as aurora, the light is caused by particles from the sun interacting with gases in Earth’s atmosphere, and is usually only observed at latitudes closer to the North or South Pole. But on Friday night, residents of lower latitudes, including those in North Carolina and Arizona, saw the dancing lights.Jane Wong, 30, of San Francisco, drove to the Presidio overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge where conditions started out foggy. But at midnight, her wait paid off as the sky started to clear.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Internet Traffic Dipped as Viewers Took in the Eclipse

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      Internet traffic dropped by 40 percent or more during the eclipse in states in the path of totality, including Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio, Cloudflare found.As the moon blocked the view of the sun across parts of Mexico, the United States and Canada on Monday, the celestial event managed another magnificent feat: It got people offline.According to Cloudflare, a cloud-computing service used by about 20 percent of websites globally, internet traffic dipped along the path of totality as spellbound viewers took a break from their phones and computers to catch a glimpse of the real-life spectacle.The places with the most dramatic views saw the biggest dips in traffic compared with the previous week. In Vermont, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio — states that were in the path of totality, meaning the moon completely blocked out the sun — internet traffic dropped by 40 percent to 60 percent around the time of the eclipse, Cloudflare said.States that had partial views also saw drops in internet activity, but to a much lesser extent. At 3:25 p.m. Eastern time, internet traffic in New York dropped by 29 percent compared with the previous week, Cloudflare found.The path of totality made up a roughly 110-mile-wide belt that stretched from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Montreal. In the Mexican state of Durango, which was in the eclipse zone, internet traffic measured by Cloudflare dipped 57 percent compared with the previous week, while farther south, in Mexico City, traffic was down 22 percent. The duration of the eclipse’s totality varied by location, with some places experiencing it for more than four minutes while for others, it was just one to two minutes.The total solar eclipse concluded off the eastern coast of Canada. At 4:35 p.m. local time, traffic in the province of Prince Edward Island was down 48 percent. More

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      Can’t Find Eclipse Glasses? Here’s What to Do.

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      You can watch a projection of the eclipse using some common household items.Reliable paper-framed glasses are by far the most popular option for safely watching the total solar eclipse on Monday. But they’ve gotten more difficult to find in some places ahead of the event.If you’ve checked everywhere — your local planetarium, public library and even online — fear not: There is still a way to watch the eclipse safely, using items around the house. Here are a few options.Use your handsPalms up, position one hand over the other at a 90-degree angle. Open your fingers slightly in a waffle pattern, and allow sunlight to stream through the spaces onto the ground, or another surface. During the eclipse, you will see a projection of the moon obscuring the surface of the sun.This method works with anything with holes, such as a straw hat, a strainer, a cheese grater or even a perforated spoon. You will also notice this effect when light from the partially eclipsed sun streams through leaves on a tree.Set up a cardstock screenFor this option, you need a couple of white index cards or two sheets of cardstock paper. First, punch a small hole in the middle of one of the cards using a thumbtack or a pin.Then, facing away from the sun, allow light to stream through this pinhole. Position the second card underneath to function as a screen. Adjust the spacing between the two cards to make the projection of the sun larger or smaller.A pinhole box for an annular solar eclipse in Gandhinagar, India, in 2020. The larger the box, the larger the image that will be projected.Sam Panthaky/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMake a box projectorIf you’re up for a bit of crafting, you can make a more sophisticated pinhole projector. Start with a cardboard box — empty cereal boxes are often used, but you can use a larger box, too. You’ll also need scissors, white paper, tape, aluminum foil and a pin or thumbtack.Cut the piece of paper to fit the inside bottom of the cardboard box to act as a screen. Use tape to hold it in place.On the top of the box, cut two rectangular holes on either side. (The middle should be left intact — you can use tape to secure this if needed.)Tape a piece of aluminum foil over one of the rectangular cutouts. Punch a tiny hole in the middle of the foil with the tack or pin. The other cutout will serve as a view hole.With your back to the sun, position the foil side of the box over your shoulder, letting light stream through the pinhole. An image of the sun will project onto the screen at the bottom of the box, which you can see through the view hole. A bigger box will create a bigger image.Enjoy the show through any of these makeshift pinholes. And remember, during totality, you can view the sun directly with your naked eye. But you should stop looking at the sun as soon as it reappears. More

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      April 8 Solar Eclipse: Path, Maps and More

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      On April 8, the moon will slip between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow across a swath of North America: a total solar eclipse. By cosmic coincidence, the moon and the sun appear roughly the same size in the sky. When the moon blocks the glare of the sun, the sun’s outer atmosphere, […] More

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      Total Solar Eclipse Safety: How to Watch Without Hurting Your Eyes

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      A number of case studies published after recent total solar eclipses highlight the importance of safe viewing.A young woman visited New York Eye & Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai Hospital shortly after the eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017. She told Dr. Avnish Deobhakta, an ophthalmologist, that she had a black area in her vision, and then drew a crescent shape for him on a piece of paper.When Dr. Deobhakta examined her eyes, he was astonished. He saw a burn on her retina that was exactly the same shape. It was “almost like a branding,” he said.She had looked at the sun during the eclipse without any protection. The burn was an image of the sun’s corona, its halo-like outer rim.With every eclipse, ophthalmologists see patients who looked at the sun and complain afterward that their vision is distorted: They see small black spots, their eyes are watery and sensitive to light. Usually, the symptoms resolve, although it may take several weeks to a year.But the woman’s retinal burns, which Dr. Deobhakta and colleagues described in a medical case write-up, would not heal. Her retina was permanently scarred and a sign of the severity of injuries that can follow looking at an eclipse without proper precautions.With the coming eclipse in April, ophthalmologists advise people to be careful and not assume that short glances at the sun are safe. Damage can occur, they say, in less than a minute.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More