Science probe reeled in

Press, 24 June 1985, Page 6

Science probe reeled in

NZPA-Reuter Cape Canaveral The space shuttle Discovery stretched out its long robot arm yesterday and reeled in a science satellite that had been scanning the Milky Way for clues of a star-gobbling “black hole.” Shuttle astronauts had released the Spartan science satellite only two days earlier, leaving it to train its powerful X-ray telescope on ah area of intense radiation 30,000 light-years away. Scientists have long suspected that the source of that radiation was an invisible black hole of densely packed matter, devouring stars, planets, and cosmic dust and gas at an incredible rate.

After Discovery’s return to Earth tomorrow United States Navy scientists will dismantle the experiment package and analyse the data.

What they hope to fine is conclusive evidence of a

black hole believed to be lurking at the centre of the Milky Way, a galaxy of 400 billion stars, including the Earth.

A new scientific study — published last month in the British journal “Nature” — provided the most precise measurement yet of the suspected black hole. Astronomers, using infra-red detection and radio waves, estimated its area at four million times the mass of the sun. Black holes are created when huge stars exhaust their nuclear fuel and collapse violently, experts say. The remains of the burnedout stars are so tightly packed that not even light can escape its gravitational grip.

During its 45-hour mission Spartan also tried to pick up clues on radiation emission from a cluster of galaxies in the Perseus constellation, 300 million light-years from Earth.