SOLAR

Wednesday, a solar cell manufacturing company Solyndra announced it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Fremont, California-based solar company will lay off all of its 1,100 workers and close down the factory which was built through the fed's loan guarantee.

Solar start-up Solyndra LLC, succumbing to pressure from lower-cost Chinese rivals, said it has suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy, 15 months after President Barack Obama visited a company factory that was to be expanded with the help of a federal loan guarantee.

Astronomers have revealed startling facts about how widely separated solar reactions are linked, with one eruption somehow triggering the other.

The United States was a net exporter of solar energy products last year, thanks to strong demand from China, Germany and Japan for U.S.-made polysilicon and capital equipment used to make solar panels.

China is targeting 3 gigawatts (GW) of roof-mounted solar power generating capacity by 2015 and 25 GW by 2020, the China Securities Journal reported on Monday, citing a government renewable energy development plan that is likely to be unveiled soon.

LDK Solar Co Ltd suffered a quarterly loss as a sharp drop in solar wafer prices forced it to write down millions of dollars in inventories, but forecast revenue for the current quarter above estimates on stabilizing prices.

Greek construction firm J&P Avax (AVAr.AT) is the frontrunner to build a 50 megawatt solar facility in southern Greece, which would be one of Europe's biggest photovoltaic parks, utility PPC (DEHr.AT) said.

CERN's latest experiments have found results that suggest we know a lot less about cloud formation that we thought, as they begin to link cosmic rays with clouds.

Chipmaker Applied Materials projected a dismal fourth quarter, mirroring concerns that slowing chip sales and a glut in the solar cell market is hurting growth, and said it will clip capacity in the near term, in line with suppressed demand.

The cool Y dwarfs are also close to the Sun. They are 40 light years away, making them one of the closets to our solar system. The closest, Proxima Centauri, is about four light years away.

More than ninety schools in California are taking advantage of the California Solar Initiative and installing solar projects. The California Solar Initiative is an incentive program to get companies, schools, and homes to switch to solar power. The program gives cash back for installing solar power, California hopes to move the state towards running completely on clean energy, from using a coffee maker in the morning, to opening your garage door, California wants its residents to operate on sola...

Researchers from Stanford University say they have discovered a way to forecast the emergence of sunspots before they reach the solar surface.

Scientists have found a way to spot active regions of the sun, a full day or two before they erupt as sunspots, by listening to sound waves from deep inside the sun. This prediction could possibly lead to better forecasts of dangerous solar storms, a new study said.

By listening and monitoring sound waves around 37,000 miles above the surface of the sun, it is now possible to predict the appearance of sunspots almost 2 days before hand.

Listening to the sounds the sun can help in predicting sunspots that are in their early stages of development and can give at least two days of warning — possibly enough time for a safety plan to be executed, researchers at Stanford University found.

Stanford researchers developed a method that allows them to peer deep into the sun's interior, using acoustic waves to catch early stage sunspots and give prompt warnings. If disruptions such as solar flares and mass eruptions could be predicted, measures could be taken to protect vulnerable electronics before solar storms strike.

Researchers have seen for the first time the inner workings of coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, from its leaving the surface of the sun to its engulfing the Earth.

New data processing techniques, coupled with a pair NASA spacecraft has allowed scientists to see the awesome power of the sun in dramatic detail as it recorded a massive solar storm engulfing Earth.

Even as scientists are working on improving solar storm predictions, a NASA spacecraft with the latest data processing techniques has tracked a solar storm engulfing the planet for the first time.

The top after-market NYSE losers on Thursday are: LDK Solar Co, Hewlett-Packard, Aeropostale, Humana, GenOn Energy, First Commonwealth Financial and UBS AG.

The company behind what is expected to one day be the world's largest solar power plant on Thursday said the California project will use photovoltaic technology instead of solar thermal power because of the dramatic drop in the price of solar panels.