Editorial - GCNEWS, Vol. 5, July 1997

GCNEWS

A Newsletter for Galactic Center Research
This Volume was edited by Angela Cotera & Heino Falcke
email: gcnews@aoc.nrao.edu



Volume 5, July 1997 - EDITORIAL

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Surprises

Heino Falcke & Angela Cotera

MSX

For astronomers it is quite common to be surprised by what is "out there". Only rarely, however, are the surprises of human origin. When many of us first heard about the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX), with its amazing mid-infrared observations of the Galactic Center, we were somewhat puzzled. Usually the development and deployment of new space telescopes and their mission objectives are widely known in the astronomical community, often decades before their launch and first light. So, we wondered was it just our ignorance of this specific mission or a general phenomenon that we were surprised by these new images? A quick, non-representative, survey of a few colleagues seemed to indicate that indeed there was a void of pre-launch information in the community. Even now, the results have not been widely discussed, as the mission results have been presented in very few articles, with many of the first results recently released in the form of BAAS abstracts (e.g. 1, 2, 3 ). Since the primary objective of the mission is part of the SDI program (now the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization), and the project has been run by the navy, it is obvious that MSX is not your typical astronomical satellite, and understandable why the development was not widely publicized.

Neverthless, the mid-IR images available so far are quite beautiful and should be very useful in understanding the structure of the dust near the Galactic Center -- especially in conjunction with other recent astronomical observations. Hence, we invited the MSX team to make one of their images, the one that best shows the complete ring of emission which contains the "Sickle", our cover image and provide our readers with an introduction to the preliminary results. Our hope is that this will stimulate wider interest in these results and lead to some new investigations, which we look forward to reporting in the future issues.

This issue

The interest in both dust and molecular gas, as two of the major areas of research in the GC, is well represented in the abstracts contained in this issue of GCNEWS. There are four abstracts on molecular line surveys by Dahmen et al. (see also Fig. 2), Oka et al., and Staguhn et al., and two on mid-infrared and far-infrared observations of dust and gas from the KAO by Chan et al., and Simpson et al. respectively. The other main topic covered in this issue is, of course, the very center itself--Sgr A* and its implications. Typical for GC research, we have a very diverse and very interesting mix.

GCNEWS -- to serve and to ...

The surprises in creating and maintaining GCNEWS continue. In the last period we have found that since, in addition to the hardcopy newsletter and newsflashes we send out, all of our information is available on our webpage, we have become a clearing house for questions and problems the general public has concerning the GC. Be it a home schooler who wants to know more about a specific question which his textbooks could not answer, a freshman who is finishing an assignement and needs references for good reviews on the GC, or a journalist who urgently needs a color image for the next issue of a big German magazine, we have been available to help and, when needed, provide contact with the right persons or papers in a timely manner. Thanks to our (asymptotically?) growing subscriber list, the many references and papers already available online, and the contacts this list provides, in the course of our first year of operation, we have not only been able to meet our goal of providing a means of rapidly sharing the latest results, but we have also begun to serve the scientific interests of the public in general, a nice and welcome benefit of producing this newsletter, and another reason to continue this endeavour into our second year and beyond.

GCNEWS will be the subject of a poster at the JD 12 on electronic publishing at the upcoming IAU General Assembly in Japan. We encourage you to stop by, take a look, and share your ideas on ways we can improve the service to you, our subscribers.

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