Nov 24 1985
From The Space Library
Astronomers tracking Halley's Comet with the recently built radio telescope called the Very Large Array found that water streamed off the comet at two to three times the rate expected from calculations made after the 1910 passing, the Washington Post reported. Comets were mainly ice balls embedded with dust and rock; they remained frozen until they neared the sun, when their surfaces began to sizzle. On October 19, when the comet was about 190 million miles from the sun, Halley was giving off two tons of water per second.
Looking at the watery stream through a radio telescope showed only a "hole" extending 30,000 miles around the comet. This appearance occurred because earth-based telescopes could not pick up the wavelengths of light given off by water-they were obscured by the earth's soggy atmosphere. Past the 30,000-mile hole, astronomers detected the water broken up into oxygen and hydrogen at a distance extending out to 60,000 miles around the comet.
Astronomers were surprised to find the oxygen-hydrogen emission in "clumps" about the size of earth rather than in a continuous cloud. "No one had even hypothesized such clumps," said Imke de Pater of the University of California. Researchers had no explanation for the clumps.
To observe the comet, de Pater and colleagues Patrick Palmer, University of Chicago, and Lewis Snyder, University of Illinois, were the first to use the two dozen "dishes" arranged in a grid at the Very Large Array, which provided resolutions 20 times better than that of a single telescope. (W Post, Nov 24/ 85, A18)
NASA announced that Leon Snead was appointed effective today NASA's assistant inspector general for auditing (AIGA), Office of Inspector General (01G). In this position, Snead would provide advice and support to the inspector general and managerial direction for the functional development, implementation, and supervision of NASA/0IG audit activities.
Before this appointment, Snead was acting assistant inspector general for auditing at the Department of Interior. He began his government career in 1964 with the U.S. Army Audit Agency as an auditor trainee; in 1974 he went on to supervisory auditor and then an audit director position with the Department of Treasury. Later he served as division director, branch chief, and branch manager at the Department of Energy and regional audit manager with the Department of Interior. Snead graduated in 1963 from Spencerian College, Milwaukee, with a BBA degree in accounting and in 1969 from the University of Baltimore with a JD degree. He was a certified internal auditor (CIA) and a member of the Association of Government Accountants (AGA). (NASA anno, Nov 24/85)
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
