Spectrometer Is Found in Desert

Reports from the launching pads at White Sands, New Mexico, indicate that the Harvard spectroscope has been found on the side of a mountain north of White Sands.

The spectroscope was sent on a trial flight last week, but authorities were unable to find it after its return to earth. William Liller, associate professor of astronomy, said that it was apparently in a "battered and beat-up condition," but it would nevertheless be able to provide valuable information to scientists.

The spectroscope successfully scanned a tiny dot in the solar disc. Liller stated that the information which the instrument relayed back to earth would be correlated and released in the near future.

Liller reported that the flight as a whole was "quite successful," although there were obvious faults that will have to be corrected before the spectroscope is put into orbit next summer.

The instrument will circle the earth aboard an observatory satellite, OSO II, which will collect data on the sun in two ways. First, it will again concentrate on a small dot in the center of the sun. It will also scan the entire disc of the sun in alternating east-to-west and north-to-south directions. Each complete scan will take about four and one-half minutes.