Bok Discovers Holes in Cosmic Dust

Armed with photographic evidence which may pierce the veil of mystery that surrounds our galaxy's core, Bart J. Bok, Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, returned yesterday from a 19-month expedition to South Africa.

In the first phase of a five-year project to determine the structure of the Milky Way, Bok has been supervising observations at Harvard's Boyden station in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. Operations included the installation last month of the world's largest objective prism for photographing stellar spectra.

Bok's photographs so far reveal thin spots through which telescopes may soon penetrate clouds of cosmic dust to explore the center of our galaxy. According to Bok, initial evidence indicates that the Milky Way has a spiral shape with the sun located on one of its arms.

Four hundred star pictures are still en route here by sea, and Bok will now spend his time interpreting this and fresh data as it arrives. Exact information about the color and distribution of the stars in the southern Milky Way has been obtained with newly developed equipment, built here, and shipped to the University's most remote outpost.

The 25-year-old Boyden station is now, according to Bok, one of the best-equipped observatories in the Southern Hemisphere. Bok reported yesterday that a group of South Africans and Americans living in South Africa has recently agreed to assure the financial stability of the outpost.

Associated with Bok in the Milky Way project has been his astronomer wife who accompanied him on the expedition, and Harlow Shapely, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy, who is making a special study of variable stars.