December 10, 1996

Three SSL scientists working on the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), a gamma-ray burst detector aboard NASA's orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, are among the top 26 cited astrophysicists in the prestigious journal Astrophysical Journal Letters for the period January through October 1996. The ApJ Letters is a primary peer-reviewed source for important and timely results in astrophysics. In addition to the presence of three scientsts from the Space Sciences Laboratory at NASA/Marshall, six additonal scientists on the list are actively using data from the BATSE experiment in their research.

The presence of these SSL scientists, and the extensive use of BATSE data among the most cited scientists, is one measure of the significant impact that the Space Sciences Laboratory's experiment has had on the entire astrophysics community. These data were compiled by D. A. Verner at the University of Kentucky, and can be found on the Internet at the address http://www.pa.uky.edu/~verner/apj.html.