Word: x-rayed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Henry, an associate of the Harvard College Observatory (HCO) who worked on a vital component ("it's analogous to an X-ray T.V. camera") of HEAO-2's sensitive X-ray telescope, decided he didn't want to watch the launch on a monitor...
Henry added, "I kept expecting to see it blow up, but it didn't." Far from it. Not only did HEAO-2 attain a nearly letter-perfect orbit, but in its first five months the X-ray observatory has returned a wealth of previously unobtainable photos and data, found a probable answer to one of the universe's most difficult questions and raised numerous new ones...
...backtrack a bit, though, twenty years ago, X-ray astronomy barely existed. Today it is at least as important as optical and radio astronomy in helping earthbound scientists study the skies...
...X-rays, energetic particles which are emitted from a variety of celestial objects and travel at the speed of light (approximately 186,000 miles/sec.), cannot be detected on Earth because the atmosphere absorbs them before reaching the surface--thus the need to get into space to conduct X-ray observations...
Seventy-six years later, the computerized axial tomography, or CAT, scanner, hailed as the greatest advance in radiology since the discovery of X rays, appeared on the medical scene. Combining X-ray equipment with a computer and a television cathode-ray tube, this revolutionary diagnostic device can visualize cross sections of the human body to detect, among other disorders, tumors, blood vessel damage and bile duct obstructions. But whereas an X-ray machine cost $50 in 1896, today's CAT scanner may run to $700,000 or more...