April 1977

From The Space Library

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Current revision

The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. reported that Kingswood Sprott, Jr., had broken his own world class hot air balloon altitude record March 26 when he reached 41 000ft over Lakeland, Fla. The previous record set March 26, 1977, also by Sprott, had been 38 789ft. (NAA newsletter Apr 77)

Recent photographs of the inner Martian satellite Phobos, obtained by the Viking 1 orbiter in Feb., had revealed "the nature of that satellite in unprecedented detail," said Scientific American. Earlier pictures by Mariner 9 or the Viking 2 orbiter were at a distance of 880km; the new pictures were taken at a distance of 660km to as little as 100km, with resolution that permitted distinguishing objects smaller than 10m across. The surface of Phobos was known to be pitted with craters from the impact of meteorites; the new images showed chains of irregular craters like those seen on the surface of the moon, although Phobos's crater chains paralleled the plane of its orbit around Mars. Pictures from Viking 2 had shown grooves on Phobos concentrated near its northern pole; the new pictures defined the grooves as crater chains possibly caused by objects hundreds of meters across. Further study of the images should reveal more about the nature of Phobos, the magazine said. (SciAm, Apr 77, 57)

Nature reported that the largest radiotelescope in the world-the Soviet RATAN-600-was "at last" officially in operation at Zelenchuk, USSR. A formal message of congratulations from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had been issued March 20. Constructed jointly by the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Ministries of Power and Electrification and of Power Plant Construction, and the Univ. of Moscow, the device had four sections each able to operate independently. Part of the RATAN had been receiving signals since 1974, Nature said, and had already undertaken studies of the moons of Jupiter, the galactic nucleus, and the fine radio structure of the sun. (Nature, Apr 7/77, 493)

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