The Astrology of Space - Matrix Software

The Astrology of Space
X-Rays, Black Holes
X-ray emission coming from the heavens was
detected in the early 1960's by means of special
detectors flown outside the Earth's atmosphere in
rockets or satellites. By 1974, a total of 161 x-ray
sources had been examined and cataloged. X-rays
are high-energy emission in the region of the
spectrum from about 1 to 140 Angstrom units, which
is above the visual region. Most x-ray sources are
strong, point like, and show a distinct concentration
toward the galactic plane, an indication that they are
members of the galaxy.
In 1966, the strongest x-ray source (Scorpio X-1) was
identified optically with a faint blue star-like object that
looked like an old nova. It had been known that old
novas are close binary systems in which one of the
stars is a white dwarf. Such binary systems involved a
transfer of matter from the normal star to the white
dwarf, leading to an explosion in the outermost
envelope of the white-dwarf nova. With the discovery
of Sco X-1, it was suggested that the x-ray sources
were binaries and that x-rays were being emitted by a
hot cloud around the white dwarf, consisting of matter
captured from the normal companion star. Other
suggestions for the phenomenon were a neutron star
and a black hole.
A black hole is a star that hat collapsed under
gravitational pressure to such a small radius that the
tendency toward further collapse exceeds the velocity
of light itself, with the result that light emitted from the
object cannot get out. As the star suffers internal
collapse, the intensity of gravity above its surface
causes space-time to fold over the star, which
vanishes from the universe, leaving a very highly
warped region or "hole" in an otherwise flat area of
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