Subsequent studies with the orbiting
Einstein Observatory brought a second claim to fame.
More than a decade ago, when the space-borne
Einstein Observatory detected X-rays from a body near the center of our galaxy, that object seemed a rather ordinary radiation source.
Scanning the heavens in great circles that pass through the north and south ecliptic poles, the German-built X-ray telescope imaged much fainter objects and achieved an angular resolution three times greater than the orbiting Einstein Observatory, which conducted a smaller X-ray imaging survey in 1979.
The Vela supernova remnant has puzzled astronomers ever since the Einstein Observatory detected its X-ray emissions.
Only 38 of these sources -- eight of them globular clusters -- appeared in observations by the orbiting
Einstein Observatory in 1979 (image on right), note Francis A.
Identified as an ordinary X-ray source more than a decade ago by the orbiting
Einstein Observatory, this Milky Way resident recently began drawing special attention.
Using observations of the Imaging Proportional Counter on the
Einstein Observatory satellite, they found first that the intensity of X-ray halos represents an amount of dust consistent with what astrophysicists had calculated from the observed absorption of visible light.