Students Part of Celestial Research Team
Two Dartmouth undergraduates, demonstrating coeducational teamwork, are part of a research group that has been making a year-long study of a mystery stream of celestial energy that may have left its source in outer space during the 12th century.
A preliminary report on observations of an optical object now identified only as Sco X-1, was presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Wash., in April by Suzan Edwards of Alexandria, Va., a Wellesley College junior studying at Dartmouth this year as an exchange student. Duncan Chesley '73 of Pownal, Maine, is also a member of the research team, along with Richard Messina, a graduate physics students; Delo E. Mook, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy; and Prof. W. A. Hiltner, astronomer at the University of Michigan.
Sco X-1 is a strong X-ray source estimated to be 150 times farther out in space than Alpha Centauri, the star nearest to Earth. Some of the energy observed may arise from hydrogen gas moving toward the X-ray source at a rate of more than one and a half million miles an hour, according to the report presented by Miss Edwards. Sco X-1 was discovered in 1962 by a rocket launched by American Science and Engineering of Cambridge, Mass., to survey outer space for X-ray emissions from the moon and other sources. Another rocket launch in 1966 enabled the scientists to identify optically an unusual blue, variable star located in the Constellation Scorpius. Professor Mook was one of those who in 1969 made simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic observations of Sco X-1 at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
For the report, the team converted photometric and spectroscopic observations of Sco X-1 into numerical representations, stored them in the Kiewit Computer memory, and then analyzed them by means of special computer programs prepared by the researchers.
Dartmouth was chosen to undertake the research involving many institutions because of the coincidence on its campus of the computing capacity of Kiewit and Professor Mook, whose research specialization has been on ways and means to define such celestial energy sources. Professor Mook also recently reported the acquisition of a special minicomputer for the Astrophysics Laboratory under a grant from the Samuel P. Hunt Foundation of Manchester, N. H. "This grant," he said, "made possible one of the finest data acquisition labs in the country."
Prior to the AAS meeting in Seattle, Miss Edwards said of the Sco X-1 research: "There are many things we don't know about this source and it is a challenge to put the pieces together. This is one of the first X-ray sources ever studied and the results of our work hopefully will serve as the groundwork for future research. I am intrigued by the mystery and uncertainties of Sco X-1, but I'm no longer awed by the mystery of the universe or its vast distances."
Exchange student Suzan Edwards and Duncan Chesley '73 in astronomy lab.
