Sep 17 1977
From The Space Library
X-ray sensors on the U.K.'s Ariel satellite had detected an explosion of "catastrophic dimensions" in the constellation Ophiuchus [the Serpent-Bearer], the NY Times reported. Similar sensors on HEAO 1, the U.S. high-energy astronomy observatory launched Aug. 12, had made the same observation. Dr. Daniel A. Schwartz of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said intensity of x-rays from that area increased a thousandfold in the past 2wk, making it the second strongest. source in the sky (that in the constellation Scorpius, a continuous source of x-rays, was the strongest). No star of comparable brilliance appeared in previous photographs of the region. Ariel had first detected the x-rays Aug. 31; HEAO I began recording the source Sept. 7. An observatory in Australia that had received data on the explosion had also recorded it in visible light; Dr. Herbert Friedman of the Naval Research Laboratory said that a nova was rarely observed at widely separated wavelengths such as those of visible light and x-rays. (NYT, Sept 17/77, 138)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
