Word: cosmically
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Other than that, the astronomer tosses off, his summer was uneventful: "A few papers on subjects like the cosmic distance scale in antiquity, and the discovery of the spiral shape of the Milky Way... a conference...
...explain these readings? Unlike the 4.6 billion-year-old sun, Vega is a veritable infant. It is less than a billion years old. At that age, it is probably still surrounded by an envelope of the cosmic debris, consisting of dust and gases, out of which all stars as well as their families of planets are apparently formed. IRAS'S sensors indicated that the temperature of this free-floating matter was a chilly -300° F, about the same as that of Saturn's innermost rings, which are made of small chunks of matter. Further calculations showed that...
Many of these conclusions, of course, are purely speculative. The infrared eyes of IRAS, as remarkably sensitive as they are, are not sharp enough to pick out any separate objects at such a great distance. Still, indications are that in the cosmic debris swirling around Vega there is a solar system in the making. Now it will be up to more powerful eyes, either on earth or in orbit, to get a better look at this new world...
...Such cosmic violence, the scientists postulated, probably results from the stormy relationship between two companion stars that orbit each other. In this scheme, one member is an ordinary star like the sun. The other is a so-called neutron star; this is essentially a dead star that has run out of nuclear fuel. As its fires die out and the star's gases cool, they explode, with the remnants collapsing upon themselves, and the star shrinks to incredible density. Typically, such a star once had a girth of 100 million miles or more, but now is only...
...After all, if such TV personalities as Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw can take time off from their duties to attend, then surely a President can do as much. Thank goodness Walter Cronkite has retired. Had he died on the job, his network might have sought a day of cosmic mourning and tribute...