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A HUGE solar magnetic storm may have been responsible for the loss of a communications satellite last week. Scientists believe the freak storm, which started life early this month as a gaseous emission from the sun, finally reached the earth's magnetic field at about the same time as the Telstar 401 television satellite mysteriously lost contact. The storm consisted of about a billion particles of matter, moving through space at two million miles an hour. Although the storm had no effect at ground level, at the satellite's height of 20,000 miles above the Earth, the effect could have been large enough to cause huge sparks through the satellite, or even bombard it with small particles, knocking out its communications. * THE humble cup of coffee may hold the key to the computers of the future, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has made a discovery concerning nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a technique for measuring the spin of atomic nuclei. Neil Gershenfield, an MIT professor, believes the principle could be applied to computing, with the up or down spin of the nuclei corresponding to the nought and one that a computer understands. After experiments with several liquids, Gershenfield discovered the liquid that allows the system to work best is an everyday cup of coffee. He also believes the nuclei's ability to represent both nought and one at the same time could mean the new breed of computer is able to work incredibly quickly as it can process more than one calculation at once. Rainbows help spies see clearly RAINBOWS are being investigated to see if they hold clues on how to improve the quality of pictures from spy satellites. America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) last week gave the remote-sensing lab at the University of Washington $70,000 (£42,000) to see if its research into the way light changes in a rainbow could be used to enhance reconnaissance photographs. The university will use multi-spectral images, which capture different parts of the light spectrum, to enhance data and photographs provided by the CIA. According to the university's Alan Gillespie, the system can reveal what kind of vegetation is present in an area. The CIA is likely to use the information to identify enemy positions and gather other intelligence.
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