FROM OUTER SPACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26778, 22 May 1948, Page 6

FROM OUTER SPACE

MYSTERIOUS NOISES SCIENTISTS TO INVESTIGATE P.A. WELLINGTON, May 21. A party of Australian scientists is coming to New Zealand seeking favourable conditions for observing mysterious “noises” being radiated to the earth from regions illimitably beyond the sun. It will be located at Leigh, 58 miles north of Auckland.

Leigh has research advantages over the Sydney headlands, where the research has hitherto been carried out. but where the necessary accuracy could not be attained. Leigh gives a northerly aspect from slightly raised ground which affords an unimpeded view of the sea. From here a clear interference pattern may be obtained of direct radiation to the earth and radiation reflected by the sea. Commenting on the mysterious radiation "noises” to be investigated, Dr C. W. Allen, principal research

assistant of the Commonwealth Observatory, Canberra, who is passing through New Zealand en route to Europe, said to-day that a study of radiation from astronomical bodies in the visible spectrum had been carried on over a very long period. “Although noises from the outer universe are still a matter for determination,” he said, “ it is thought that the highly variable components of the noise emanate from a comparatively small source such as a star. Only three or four sources of outside radiation are discernible. There must be something very peculiar about a star or source that emits this noise. In the case of noise from the constellation Cygnus. there are occasional quiet spells characterised by pulsations lasting about 20 seconds. It is impossible to recognise the responsible star, but it is certainly not the entire constellation. The responsible star must produce many million times as much noise as the sun does.”