Death rays—millions of miles long—have been detected in the sky with the aid of a new 82-inch telescopic "eye" installed here. The telescope is the second largest in the world.
Surprisingly vast clouds of hydrogen in and about the famous Milky Way comprise one of the new discoveries reported here by Dr. Otto Struve, director of the McDonald Observatory now! established here.
Hydrogen makes up nearly the entire mass of this interstellar gas, Dr. Struve explained at ceremonies here dedicating the new telescope and other surveying instruments for the new observatory.
Some of the hydrogen is glowing. Its light is ut due to heat, but by the ultra-violet rays given off by extremely hot stars in the vicinity of some of the hydrogen clouds.
These ultra-violet beams are true "death rays." They reach out for about 300 light years, which is the distance light will travel in 300 years, That is their "effective" distance, within which they can cause detectible disturbances in hydrogen and other gases in space.
Evidence of a continent of stars near the earth was reported at the dedication ceremonies. The "continent" means that in our own region of the Milky Way, the area within something like ten million light years, stars are much more numerous than in other areas.
Galactic light has now been fiis-covered, it was reported. These are rays which do not come from stars. Galactie light is the night sky illumination which is left after four others kinds of night sky illumination are eliminated. The others are faint rays of the aurora which are always present, the scattering of light by the air, the starlight and the zodiac cal light. The last-named is a faint reflection at night of the sun's ray en dust particles in space.
The final result shows that the galactice light is 50 per cent. of what man takes to be merely star light The source of this light is thought to be dust and gas in space.—Reuter, i
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