NASA's Dawn Moves On To Another Asteroid – 9/6 KQED Science News Roundup

NASA's Dawn moves on to another asteroid - San Jose Mercury NewsClick photo to enlarge LOS ANGELES (AP) -- One asteroid down, one to go. After spending a year gazing at Vesta, NASA's Dawn spacecraft was set to cruise toward the most massive space rock in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter -- a voyage that will take nearly three years.

Land buy 'huge puzzle piece' for trailsThe Solano Land Trust paid $13.5 million to preserve 1,500 acres of former Indian hunting grounds and villages known as Rockville Trails, just west of Fairfield. The plan is to build a park with a regional trail system between Solano and Napa counties and eventually link up with the 800,000-acre stretch of parkland and open space called the Blue Ridge Berryessa Natural Area.

East Bay town hoping to save $4.4 million by going solar - San Jose Mercury NewsDANVILLE -- Town officials are hoping for big savings from four solar power arrays that will be going up around town this fall. On Tuesday, the town council approved a $1.2 million energy prepayment to San Mateo-based SolarCity, which now has the go-ahead to build the arrays on town-owned properties.

California ISO marks 1,000-megawatt solar milestone - The Sacramento BeeCalifornia surpassed a major milestone during a recent heat wave, hitting more than 1,000 megawatts of solar power generation. That's equal to the output of two large, gas-fired power plants. The threshold - driven by heavy air-conditioning use during recent, blistering-hot days - was surpassed multiple times, according to the Folsom-based California Independent System Operator Corp., which operates the state's wholesale transmission grid.