Word: vela
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When a two-pulse burst of light flashed in the atmosphere over the remote southern seas off South Africa on Sept. 22, a U.S. Vela reconnaissance satellite registered the intensity and transmitted the data back to earth. After a month of scrutiny, the U.S. Government surmised that the light may have been caused by a relatively low-yield nuclear explosion. Suspicion fell on South Africa, whose haughty denials did little to quell international fears that the Pretoria government had succeeded in developing a nuclear weapon...
Could the Vela satellite, in its electronic wisdom, have "imagined" it? The week's favorite theory was that the burst was really caused by a "superbolt" of lightning 100 times more intense than a normal bolt. Vela satellites have previously observed such phenomena, mainly over the sea and particularly in the vicinity of Japan. But in all previous known instances, a superbolt has emitted a single pulse of light...
...assumption that some primitive man might have carved his impressions of the great event-markings that could be archaeologically dated to determine more precisely when the Vela supernova occurred-NASA Astronomers John C. Brandt, Stephen P. Maran and Theodore Stecher last year issued an appeal. They asked archaeologists to be on the lookout, especially in the Southern hemisphere-where the Gum nebula can be best observed-for any unidentified ancient symbols that might have been painted or carved to represent the supernova...
Reading the astronomers' request (TIME, March 27, 1972), Michanowsky immediately recalled the odd markings he had seen years before in Bolivia. Searching his records, he found that the carvings showed four small circles-similar to the so-called "False Cross" star grouping in the constellations Vela and Carina-flanked by two larger circles. Michanowsky identified one of these larger circles as a representation of the bright star Canopus. The other circle, which was even bigger, had no existing counterpart in the sky. But it was approximately at the site of the invisible pulsar. Could the second circle...
...among some lowland tribes this humdrum part of the sky is known as the Region of the Chase of the Celestial Ostrich, a bird revered in Indian mythology. According to Indian lore, the ostrich was driven across the sky by two voracious dogs and finally killed in the constellation Vela. Michanowsky also learned of some possible connections between Indian star lore and the site of the annual orgy. In Indian dialects, the site is called mutun (very hot stone), which could perhaps refer to some ancient heavenly fire...