National
THE BATTALION
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1980
Page 7
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United Press International
PASADENA, Calif. — Voyager 1
ized back at Saturn Thursday,
adding more dazzling data to an
already priceless legacy that poses
new questions for space scientists,
specially the mystery of the planet’s
theoretically impossible “braided”
rings.
Astronomer and TV’s “Cosmos”
lost Carl Sagan called the strange
rings — which appear to twist ser-
jentinely as they circle the mustard-
/ellow planet — “an absolutely stun-
ling development.”
Under the laws of physics as they
lave been understood for centuries,
mch a configuration is an impossi
bility.
Puzzled scientists, abandoning
the restraints of professional lan
guage to describe the rings as
weird,” “bizarre” and “mind-
oggling,” said only that unknown
forces must be at work.
“It is not that the laws of physics
ire wanting, but that human brains
have not yet been clever enough to
] explain this,’’said Sagan, who drop
ped by the Jet Populsion Laboratory
Wednesday to see the latest pic-
ures.
“I suspect this means the rings are
dynamic, changing objects being
died by gravity. I am guessing that
ivhen Voyager 2 arrives next August
»e will find that formation has
jed — but determining what is
ping on here will be a big job, a real
oad of mathematics.”
118 driven from Bahamas
Voyager 1, launched more than
three years ago, made its close en
counter with Saturn more than 947.6
million miles from Earth at 5:46 p. m.
CST Tuesday, skimming just 77,200
miles above its clouds at 56,599 mph.
The space probe spent 22 hours
and 23 minutes inside the multihued
rings, sailing out Wednesday night
on a course that will eventually make
it the third man-made object to
leave this solar system, after two
Pioneer spacecrafts.
A full day of experiments was sche-
duled Thursday, including the
closest encounters with two of
Saturn’s 15 known moons, Hyperion
and lapetus. JPL scientists face their
heaviest workload during the rest of
the week as the flood of information
is processed and analyzed.
President Carter, who watched
the Saturn encounter for an hour
Wednesday, hailed it as “a superb
scientific achievement” in a phone
call to JPL scientists.
He also said he was proposing
budget funds for a similar mission to
Venus, but the final decision on the
money will be up to President-elect
Ronald Reagan and the incoming
Congress.
A twin to Voyager is due to reach
Saturn next August and then cruise
on to explore Uranus for the first
time in 1986 and possibly distant
Neptune in 1989.
Saturn, second largest planet in
the solar system, is a bitter cold ball
of mustard-colored gas. Its girdling
rings — one of the most spectacular
sights in the solar system, first seen
by Galileo in 1610 — are believed to
be made up of chunks of ice — “dirty
snowballs.”
The rings are far more numerous
than earthbound astronomers had
thought. The five rings visible
through telescopes apparently are
actually hundreds of rings of diffe
rent sizes. On close examination,
they have provided many puzzles,
none more baffling than the
“braided” feature.
“In the strange world of Saturn’s
rings, the bizarre has become com
monplace,” sighed Dr. Bradford
Smith, head of the imaging team as
he told reporters of Tuesday’s dis
covery.
“It boggles the mind that this can
even exist. There appear to be kinks
in the braids, which make it even
more difficult to understand.”
Scientists could only speculate the
rings are reacting to gravitational
pulls unknown to them and difficult
to imagine.
The braiding was discovered in
the outermost F-ring, which was
found only last year by an earlier
space probe, Pioneer 11.
That appeared to rule out the pos
sibility that Voyager 1 observed
some transitory development, Smith
said.
“If it’s been around one year, it’s
been around billions of years, which
means this weird configuration is
stable.”
Haitian refugees returned
United Press International
NASSAU — Armed police ordered reporters off Cayo
xibos, then used nightsticks to herd 118 Haitians into a
skip waiting to return them to the homeland they fled
wo months ago.
Filmed reports of American television crews con-
rasted sharply with a government spokesman in Nassau
swhosaid, “There were some problems initially with the
Haitians refusing to go, but there was nothing physical. ”
Bahamas Defense Force headquarters in Nassau re-
iised to confirm whether the removal of the Haitians
iadbeen completed. “I’m not at liberty to tell you,” said
adeskofficer. But at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, he said, “I
nk it is still going on.”
The Haitians left their homeland in September in a
Moot wooden sailboat. Five died at sea, and 118 survi-
m were cast onto Cayo Lobos by a storm which swept
their frail craft away.
They were without food or drinking water until disco
vered by a U.S. Coast Guard patrol plane.
When told they were to be returned to Haiti, the
leader of the group, Claude Pierre, 25, of Port-au-
Prince, said, “They are going to have to kill us right
here, it is a decision we made together before we left.
We knew we might die. We knew that the voyage was
dangerous. But we know we will die in Haiti if we stay.”
A 135-foot supply vessel named Lady Moore sent to
Cayo Lobos Tuesday to remove the Haitians was met by
refugees throwing rocks and brandishing knives, sticks
and sharpened shells. The vessel withdrew.
A Bahamas Defense Force patrol craft arrived at the
island Wednesday carrying nine military policemen
armed with automatic weapons. The evacuation began.
Five Cuban-Americans, who also took refuge on the
island this week after their boat burned and sank, have
been aboard the Lady Moore since Tuesday. American
authorities wil take responsibility for them when the
ship arrives in Port-au-Prince.
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United Press International
OAK LAWN, Ill. — A citizens
group says “Show Me,” a sex educa
tion book featuring children engag
ing in sexual experimentation, shows
a little too much, and members say
they will fight to ban the book from
the local library.
The Oak Lawn Library Board re
fused to back the group’s bid to ban
the controversial book, but voted 5-2
Tuesday to keep it under wraps in
the librarian’s office, and make it
available only upon request, to
adults.
The book is a “juvenile portrayal of
children (and teenagers) finding out
about each other, looking at each
other’s bodies,” a library spokesman
said.
But Nancy Czerwiec of the Oak
Lawn County Awareness Group in
the Chicago suburb called the book
“smut” and said it contained “deviate
sex.”
Czerwiec said the library board
ignored a petition of 800 signatures
against “Show Me,” and her group
will continue its campaign to ban it.
She warned the group would seek
court action as a “last resort.”
However, Head Librarian James
M. O’Brien said courts in Oklahoma,
New Hampshire and Toronto, Cana
da, have already ruled that “Show
Me” was not obscene.
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