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NASA USES NEW METHOD TO DETECT NEW STARS AND PLANETS

	NASA astronomers investigating how stars are born have used a new
approach to observe the motion of multiple clumps of interstellar gas that are
on the verge of becoming new stars and planetary systems.

	This experiment was performed with the new instruments developed for
NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), which is searching for radio
signals that may be coming from technological civilizations on planets orbiting
distant stars.

	HRMS is part of NASA's Toward Other Planetary Systems (TOPS)
program, which is designed to find and study planets forming around other
stars.

	The Milky Way galaxy contains large, massive interstellar clouds of gas
which are the nurseries for newborn stars.   Astronomers believe gravity causes
these clouds to collapse and fragment and produce smaller, dense clumps of
gas.  In time, these clumps collapse to form protostars and ultimately, stars
and planetary systems.

	"We hope that by finding and characterizing these small, dense clumps
of gas we can understand the star formation process and why different types of
stars evolve," said Dr. Thangasamy Velusamy, a member the research team at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.

	One way to study interstellar clouds is to detect the radio emissions
produced by a variety of molecules found in the gas clouds.

	The JPL scientists observed that radio emissions from a carbon-sulfur
chain molecule, called CCS, stand out much more clearly in some of these gas
clumps.

	"We found that these parcels of gas have very little or no internal
motion, other than random motions of individual molecules at very low
temperatures (20 degrees K).  For this reason we believe that we are seeing the
basic cloud fragments from which stars may form," said Dr. William Langer,
leader of JPL's Radio Astronomy Group.

	To detect the radio waves in the star-forming clouds, scientists used
the large 230-foot (70-meter) radio telescope at NASA's Deep Space Network in
Goldstone, Calif., in conjunction with the 2 million channel wide-band spectrum
analyzer that is the heart of the HRMS sky survey system.

	"What made our observations unique was that we were able to take
advantage of the HRMS spectrum analyzer to separate out the motions of
individual clumps of gas, which gave us unprecedented velocity resolution,"
said Langer.

	"Using this instrument with the large radio telescope allows us to
detect small scale structure in a star-forming region and study their motions
with respect to one another.  This is especially important to resolve the
questions of how stars form and why some stars form alone, while others form
companion systems orbiting one another," Langer continued.

	In collaboration with Langer and Velusamy, Drs. Thomas Kuiper, Steven
Levin and Edward Olsen presented their findings before the 182nd national
meeting of the American Astronomical Society at the University of California at
Berkeley.

	Velusamy, Director of the Ooty Radio Observatory in India, is on
sabbatical leave as a U.S. National Research Council senior resident research
associate at JPL.

	The research performed by JPL's Radio Astronomy Group was conducted
under contract with NASA.  HRMS is sponsored by the Solar System Exploration
Division, Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
-end-

Paula Cleggett-Haleim
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone:  202/358-0883)                                June 8, 1993

Mary A. Hardin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone:  818/354-5011)

RELEASE:  93-106