MUFONET-BBS GROUP - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK
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ASTRONOMY NEWS - WIRE
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=START= XMT: 14:22 Tue Jan 14 EXP: 14:00 Fri Jan 17
TRW-BUILT NASA'S COMPTON OBSERVATORY FINDS THREE NEW GAMMA
RAY QUASARS
ATLANTA (JAN. 14) BUSINESS WIRE - NASA's Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory, built by TRW, has found three new gamma ray
quasars that are approximately 10 to 20 million light years
from Earth, a scientist reported during a news conference
at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in
Atlanta Tuesday.
TRW Space & Technology Group of Redondo Beach, Calif., built
the 17-ton Compton Observatory and integrated its four
scientific instruments under contract to NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center.
Dr. Carl Fichtel, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md., co-principal investigator for the Compton
Observatory's Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope
(EGRET) instrument told astronomers and reporters meeting
in Atlanta that his instrument appears to have detected
''still more distant and very luminous gamma-ray sources,
even more distant than the massive quasar 3C 279.''
The EGRET team reported three sources of intense localized
gamma radiation, quasars Q0208-512, 4C38.41 and PKS0528+134,
detected between May 16, 1991, and Sept. 18, 1991, located
in the constellations of Eridanus, Hercules and near the
Crab Nebula, approximately 10 to 20 billion light years from
Earth.
In addition to the quasar observations, EGRET scientists
released an image Tuesday of the June 11, 1991 solar flare
made by the telescope.
Dr. Gerald Fishman, principal investigator for the Burst and
Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) reports that his team
has detected more than 200 cosmic gamma-ray bursts since
Compton's launch last April. BATSE is designed to study
the mysterious phenomenon of gamma-ray bursts.
BATSE scientists announced last September indications of an
apparant random distribution of the bursts in the sky. More
recent observations by the BATSE team have further confirmed
the earlier observation with almost twice as many bursts as
the original report.
The Compton Observatory is the second of NASA's ''Great
Observatories.'' The first was the Hubble Space Telescope,
launched in April 1990. The other is the Advanced X-ray
Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), expected to launch in 1998.
Deployed April 7, 1991 from the Space Shuttle Atlantis,
Compton Observatory currently orbits Earth at an altitude of
268 x 252 statue miles (432 x 422 kilometers).
=END=
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