Page:Open Skies (Kellermann).pdf/30

 the direction of arrival of this static coincided with … the direction of the sun. However, during January and February, the direction has gradually shifted so that now [March 1] it precedes in time the direction of the sun by as much as an hour.

Still assuming that the source of static was terrestrial, and not having any background in astronomy, Jansky continued to speculate that the hiss type static might be related to the Sun, and that the change in apparent direction might somehow be due to the Sun’s changing declination after the winter solstice. He concluded, however, that, “the data as yet cover only observations taken over a few months and more observations are necessary before any hard and fast deductions can be drawn.”

Throughout 1932, Jansky meticulously continued his observations. Indeed, after the summer solstice when the Sun reached its northern declination limit, instead of changing direction the shift in apparent position of the star noise continued. According to Southworth (1956) Jansky discussed his results with many of his associates, including his supervisor, Friis, Southworth, Edmond Bruce, Al Beck, Art Crawford, and probably most importantly, Melvin [Mel] Skellett. Skellett, who was a close friend of Jansky’s, was studying for his PhD in astronomy at Princeton. He apparently recognized the sidereal nature of Jansky’s data and advised Jansky to look at elementary astronomy text books. Jansky studied these text books and mastered the trigonometric transformations between terrestrial and celestial coordinates. He went back and reexamined his data, and on 21 December 1932 he wrote to his father,

I have taken more data which indicates definitely that the stuff, whatever it is, comes from something not only extraterrestrial but from outside the solar system. It comes from a direction that is fixed in space.

Karl apparently fully recognized the implications of his findings. Showing the same competitive spirit that his colleagues associated with his sports and bridge activities, he continued, “I’ve got to get busy and write another paper right away before someone else interprets the results in my other paper in the same way and steals my thunder from my own data.” In an 18 January 1933 letter, he backed off somewhat, writing, “I have data which shows conclusively that the hiss type static comes from a direction which I know at least lies in a plane fixed in space and I think the direction is fixed in that plane but I am not sure of that as yet.”13

Around this time, Karl’s work was disturbed by a move to a new home in Little Silver with his wife and baby daughter, and an announced reorganization of Bell Labs with a threatened 30 percent cut in the engineering staff. He noted that a close friend and former roommate who had behaved “independently,” but who had recently become a father and purchased a home was let “out.”14 This may have unnerved Jansky, who commented on the low morale at the lab and queried his father about possible teaching jobs at the University