Word: interstellar
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Your American Note on humanity's first interstellar message [Dec. 2] called it an act of faith. You might also have described it as a symbolic act, part of a revolution in our concept of our place in the universe...
...neat mathematical explanation. He calculated that if the galaxies actually have ten times more mass than has been seen through the telescopes of earthbound observers, the velocities of the stars would satisfy Newton's laws. Ostriker theorizes that the mass exists in invisible halos of small, dim stars, interstellar dust and gases, and perhaps even "black holes" -cadavers of huge, ancient stars, so completely collapsed under their own powerful gravity that not even light can escape from them...
...molecules in radio waves from Kohoutek. The discovery has dual significance. Both molecules have been found in the clouds of gases and dust in the vast reaches between the stars; thus their presence in the comet lends strong support to the theory that comets were formed from the same interstellar material out of which the solar system was born. In addition, because both molecules decompose into simpler molecules unless they are frozen, their detection helps confirm the most commonly accepted idea about comets: they are little more than giant icebergs made up of frozen gases and dust...
...other planets and moons were formed. Thus comets are primordial matter, largely unchanged since the solar system's birth. (Lyttleton ascribes a different origin to the comets: he thinks that they are swept up by solar gravity as the sun wheels around the galaxy through clouds of interstellar matter...
...primary objective of the Harvard and Smithsonian scientists is to establish whether comets are formed in the "regions of outer planets or from some interstellar process," Fred L. Whipple, professor of Astronomy, said yesterday...