Pete Woods and Georgia Richardson on Discovery Team of SGR 1627-41

Huntsville, AL - UAH graduate students Pete Woods and Georgia Richardson were the first to see the BATSE triggers for the latest new Soft Gamma Repeater, later dubbed SGR 1627-41. This discovery increases the total number of known SGRs from 3 to 4. "It's always exciting to see a new source for the first time", reports Richardson. Astronomers now believe that SGRs are "magnetars", highly magnetized neutron stars that undergo "star-quakes" and release enormous amounts of energy in bursts of soft gamma rays. To learn more about SGRs, visit www.magnetars.com The discovery of SGR 1627-41 is reported in IAU Circular 6944. A full feature article can be found at www.ssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast09jul98_1.htm.

Paper by Colleen Wilson accepted for publication in ApJ

Huntsville, AL - UAH graduate student and NASA civil servant Colleen Wilson recently had a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal entitled "Discovery of the 198 s X-ray Pulsar GRO J2058+42", by Colleen A. Wilson, M.H. Finger, B.A. Harmon, D. Chakrabarty, and T.Strohmayer. The Full Story The paper is scheduled to appear in the June 1, 1998 issue, volume 499. Preprints are available at the BATSE Pulsar web-site or on the astro-ph preprint server at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/9802324.

Tim Giblin gives invited talk at University of Missouri St. Louis Physics Department

Huntsville, AL - UAH graduate student Tim Giblin gave an invited talk entitled "Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts with BATSE Onboard the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory" on friday January 30, 1998 at the University of Missouri St. Louis Physics department colloquium. The talk was well received by the audience consisting of approximately 25-30 physics faculty and students. The talk was followed by a 15-20 minute question and answer period. Question topics ranged from GRB progenitors to the GRB intensity distribution. Tim has been invited back for next year to report the new GRB discoveries that will be made in the upcoming year! Abstract

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