Word: supernovae
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...times more plentiful in otherworldly matter than in the earth's crust. The "spike" in the readings made a sobering point. "It's the first experimental evidence that something quite extraordinary happened then," says Physics Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez, who gave his son a helping hand. A supernova that could have wiped out the dinosaurs? "A very small probability," says Alvarez père. Also possible but improbable: a cloud of interstellar gas or a large meteorite. On with the parlor game...
...important advances resulted from these and other early missions, the results were still comparatively primitive--the best pre-HEAO-2 X-ray photos of the sky show only blurs and blotches. Though many different and powerful X-ray sources had been found-- among them the leftovers from stellar explosions ("supernova remnants"); some unusual galaxies; and quasars, star-like objects that gave off enormous amounts of energy--their precise structure still could not be observed...
Zwicky and Baade even suggested a possible location of such a neutron star. They predicted that one might be found in the center of the expanding gases of the celebrated Crab Nebula, the site of a Milky Way supernova that was observed by Chinese astronomers...
Berry admits that his first trekkies would not know where they might emerge or if they would ever get back. One possibility: they could construct a parallel black hole at their destination to bring them home. He also seems unconcerned about another hazard: his creation might explode in a supernova, spraying its builders with deadly radiation. Still, the author writes with such refreshing faith in science's ability to conquer all obstacles of time and space that even skeptics may be willing to suspend disbelief and join him in this dazzling armchair journey across the cosmos. Here, at least...
...These data appear, neatly boxed, on the greenish radar screen of the controller. As the plane moves through the air, the tiny box proceeds by tiny hops across the screen. A pilot can attract the attention of a controller by making his flight data brighten, as though a tiny supernova had flared on the radar...