Sarah Keegan

Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

October 12, 1993
(Phone: 202/358-0883)

Michael Finneran
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-5565)

RELEASE: 93-182

GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATORY PRODUCES THREE MAJOR DISCOVERIES

NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory has yielded three major

breakthroughs, two of which will enable scientists to unmask
hidden supernovae -- the remnants of exploded stars -- buried deep
in the center of the Milky Way. The third discovery pinpoints a
source of the mysterious cosmic rays in this galaxy that have
puzzled researchers since the rays first were detected more than
80 years ago.

The findings were made by the Imaging Compton Telescope

(COMPTEL), one of four instruments on the observatory, managed by
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

"With these three observations, COMPTEL certainly has achieved

a major breakthrough," said Dr. Volker Schoenfelder, of the Max
Planck Institut in Germany and Principal Investigator for COMPTEL.
The instrument is a collaborative project by Max Planck, the Space
Research Organization of The Netherlands in Leiden, the European
Space Agency's European Space Research and Technical Center in The
Netherlands and the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

"The first two observations are among the first quantitative

tests of the whole theory of the origin of the elements in the
universe, which are the building blocks upon which everything we
are made of are created," Schoenfelder said. "The third discovery
gives us a source for something that has eluded astrophysicists
for more than 8 decades. So it's all quite exciting."

Two of the COMPTEL discoveries were the detection of Titanium

44 and Aluminum 26 emissions called gamma-ray lines. Titanium 44
and Aluminum 26 were radioactive isotopes which, when they
decayed, left an interstellar trail of crumbs that COMPTEL
scientists traced to the supernovae that produced the emissions
long ago.
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The Titanium 44 gamma-ray line was observed from the supernova

remnant Cas-A, the leftover from a star that exploded in the
mid-1600s some 9,000 light-years from Earth. A Titanium 44
gamma-ray line never had been observed by any space- or
ground-based telescope until COMPTEL's powerful detector picked it
up earlier this year.

The isotope's relatively short half-life of 54 years -- the

time it takes to radioactively decay into another chemical element
-- means that scientists now will be able to look for Titanium 44
as evidence of comparatively recent supernovae that thus far, have
eluded detection optically or with instruments that probe
wavelengths in other than the visible spectrum.

Such an ability is significant because observed supernovae in

the Milky Way are rare compared to those sighted in other
galaxies. Supernovae in other galaxies have been observed on
average three times a century. By contrast, the last recorded
supernova in the Milky Way was nearly 400 years ago, in 1604.

Elements Will Serve As Beacons

Researchers have speculated, however, that many more supernovae

occur in the Milky Way but cannot be seen because of obscuring gas
and dust that lies between Earth and the star-packed inner regions
of the galaxy.

"But with Titanium 44 as a beacon, COMPTEL and future

experiments should be able to detect more of those hidden
supernovae," said Schoenfelder.
 Unlike Titanium 44, Aluminum 26 emissions have been detected
previously. Now COMPTEL scientists have found indications that
link Aluminum 26 emissions to a supernova called Vela that took
place some 10,000 years ago about 1,000 light-years away.

If this finding is verified by further analysis, then COMPTEL

would have, for the first time, established a link between
Aluminum 26 emissions and a supernova. This in turn would allow
scientists to discover more supernovae that occurred in the much
more distant past, due to the very long half-life -- about 1
million years -- of Aluminum 26.

COMPTEL's third discovery was to identify the Orion nebula, an

area of molecular clouds and star-forming regions, as a source of
cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are high-speed particles that fill the
Milky Way galaxy. They were discovered in 1911, and scientists
ever since have searched in vain for their sources.

COMPTEL, however, identified a region in which cosmic rays are

abundant. These cosmic rays were detected through their
interaction with other particles in space.

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As the chemical elements that make up these rays were

accelerated by supernovae explosions and stellar winds, the
chemical elements collided with gas between stars in the Orion
nebula at velocities up to the speed of light -- 186,000 miles per
second. The collisions caused them to emit gamma-ray lines.
COMPTEL detected gamma-ray lines for carbon and oxygen that were
produced by these particle collisions.

"It is now a challenge for theorists to explain what produces

cosmic rays," said Schoenfelder. Most likely, they are created by
the young stars in the Orion nebula. But no one is certain.

The observatory was launched April 5, 1991, on the Space

Shuttle Atlantis. It is managed by Goddard for the Office of
Space Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

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