60 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
60 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
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SUBJECT: POWERFUL BEAM STRIKING THE EARTH FILE: UFO2254
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Copyright, 1988. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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By MATT MYGATT Associated Press Writer
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A powerful beam striking the Earth from a
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twin star system 14,000 light years away could herald a new type of
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particle that physicists said confounds the standard theories of
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physics.
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The beam, carrying a million billion electron volts of energy, comes
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from a neutron star, half of a binary star system named Hercules X-1 in
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the constellation Hercules, said Dr. Guarang Yodh, a physicist at the
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University of California at Irvine.
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The neutron star is nearly the size of Earth's moon, but is extremely
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dense with a mass nearly double the sun's.
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The other half of the star system, about 4 million miles from the
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neutron star, is a star similar to the sun.
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The neutron star is a large, spinning magnet, generating massive
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electromagnetic fields and giving off powerful radiation.
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The beam, first detected at Los Alamos National Laboratory in July
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1986, initially was believed to be electrically neutral gamma rays,
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which are high-energy light waves or photons.
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The problem with that interpretation was that the beam "hits way up
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in the atmosphere and produces a shower of particles," Yodh said Friday
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in a telephone interview.
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Gamma rays are not supposed to do that, said Dr. Darragh Nagle, a
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physicist at the Los Alamos lab.
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"That's the thing that's interesting and puzzling about the finding,"
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he said. "There is the possible presence of a new particle that is
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coming out of the study of a powerful neutral beam.
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"It isn't the power of the neutral beam; it's this peculiar
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interaction in the Earth's atmosphere," Nagle said in a telephone
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interview.
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Yodh said the discovery should lead to new insights about sources of
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energy in the universe and about the elementary structure of matter.
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"Both of them are extremely relevant to our understanding of our
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universe. I think that is the main impact it will make on society," Yodh
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said.
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Yodh said scientists have come up with several explanations for the
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strange beam, which also has been detected by observatories in Arizona
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and Hawaii. One explanation is that it is made of a previously unknown
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particle.
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"It is unexplainable by conventional theory, present-day knowledge,"
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Yodh said.
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Scientists delayed in publishing their findings because they have
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been rechecking their research and trying to come up with an
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explanation, he said.
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"We've been trying to make it go away. We've been trying to say it's
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some mistake. But we can't," Yodh said.
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A technical paper on the research will soon be published in the
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international scientific journal "Physical Review Letters," Nagle said.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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**********************************************
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