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International Science News
| Article
# : |
10920 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1986 |
2,027 Words |
| Author
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Kurt Stehling
Kurt Stehling is chief scientist emeritus for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). |
The Americas
Chile: Astronomer Jorge Melnick at the University of Chile has reported the discovery of an enormous star cluster, named NGC 1705-A, shining with the brilliance, or light output, of more than 100 million suns.
This is the most luminous cluster seen so far, as well as one of the most distant (30 million light-years). Its existence supports current theories about violent star formations. In such processes, hundreds of thousands of massive stars are "born" almost at once in a small volume of space. The object had been seen before but was assumed to be a single super-luminous star.
Melnick, working with Spanish and British colleagues, made the discovery with the 2.5-meter DuPont telescope at Las Campanas in northern Chile.
Asia Pacific
Australia: A Synthetic "rock" called SYNROC has been developed at the National University in Canberra. SYNROC can immobilize radioactive waste (radwaste) generated by commercial and other nuclear power and processing facilities.
SYNROC is as dense and durable as natural rock. It is composed of rutile plus three titanate minerals: hollandite, zirconlite and perovskite. For some years it has been laboratory tested as a "barrier" in Australia, Japan, and Europe, and has been proven totally to contain and immobilize radwaste, with no leaching. SYNROC is also immune to erosion and corrosion, as shown by accelerated hot brine tests, and may be the ideal material for future safe deep-ocean dumping. United States participation in joint testing of SYNROC for disposing of U.S. radwastes is being discussed between senior engineers of the American Environmental Protection Agency and Australian authorities.
China (PRC): Beijing-The People's Republic of China is moving toward the forefront of high-energy physics by constructing a nuclear accelerator to be completed by 1988. Chinese physicists have long felt that, without an accelerator, China could not be considered as a ranking nation in the growing and important field of high-energy physics.
Also, without a "home" accelerator, Chinese physicists would have great difficulty in participating, on an exchange basis, in the research at such nuclear facilities as the CERN
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