Number 300 (Story #2), December 20, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein MOUNTAINS ON THE SUN. The SOHO spacecraft, dedicated to observing the sun and doppler-mapping the rise and fall of material and the passage of vibrations across the sun's face, has detected the presence of extended structures a third of a mile high on the solar surface. Jeffrey Kuhn of Michigan State, speaking at this week's American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, said the bumps persisted in the same place on the surface for a month or more. (San Jose Mercury News, 18 December 1996.)