Description

Contact sheet of 36 black and white photographs of George W. Clark adjusting his celestial x-ray detector on a table. The x-ray will be sent into orbit, and used to learn about the evolutionary processes of stars.

Original caption: "M.I.T. X-Ray Detector Readied for Orbit Professor George Clark of the Center for Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is shown with celestial x-ray detector scheduled to be carried into orbit aboard the Orbiting Solar Observatory-H satellite which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to launch from Cape Kennedy, Fla., this week. The M.I.T. eperiment is one of several mounted in the wheel-like scientific satellite. Professor Clark and his associates designed and built the instrument to measure and map celestial x-ray sources. Data will be radioed back to earth and will help scientists study the evolutionary processes of stars and the dynamics of the universe. Of special interest are x-ray sources in the Crab Nebula, in the Scorpio and Cynus constellations, and in the galaxy known as M-87. --M.I.T. Photo, September 1971"