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ill the spotlight Nova" explores astrophysics Black holes are believed capable of absorbing whole stars, as in this artist's conception. In "Cosmic Fire," airing Sunday, October 18 on PBS (check local listings), "Nova" takes us on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride through the brief history of X-ray astronomy--a new branch of our oldest science. Using NASA film, animations, demonstrations, and com ments from scientists themselves, "Cosmic Fire" captures the unexpected bends, turns, and sudden leaps in the mind- boggling adventure of today's astrophysics. X-rays are formed only by the highest energies or in ex­ treme temperatures--temperatures measured in the millions of degrees Thus, they originate in the hottest, most unusual places in the universe, places of explosive destruction and crea­ tion. However, X-rays are absorbed by our atmosphere and never reach the earth's surface. Until rockets lifted scientific in­ struments above the atmosphere, we could not begin to see the vision of turmoil and violence which X-rays reveal. "Nova" first journeys back 30 years to chronicle the sur­ prise and suspense of the early days of X ray astronomy. X-ray detectors were placed in rockets that briefly looped out of the dense lower layers of the atmosphere These crude observa­ tions produced hints of startling discoveries still to come. By the early 1960's, X-rays had been detected coming from strange objects outside the solar system--at least one of them sending off a billion times more energy in X-rays than the sun produces. As "Nova" documents, scientists eventually conclud­ ed that they were seeing the effects of neutron stars and black holes--bizarre, collapsed worlds crushed by their own super- gravity into something totally unlike anything on earth. A single tablespoon of a neutron star, for example, would weigh ten billion tons. The film cites X-ray studies which revealed a thin but in­ credibly hot gas spread throughout clusters of galaxies--so much gas that it doubled astronomers' estimates of how much material comprises the whole universe. This gas could help determine whether the universe will expand forever or will even­ tually collapse back into a fierce fireball like the explosion of its birth. "Nova" is produced for PBS by WGBH/Boston and is fund­ ed by grants from Johnson & Johnson, the National Science Four i3tion, 2nd public television stations. mmmm By Aphrodite Jones 1 Jane Alexander with CBS Cable Executive Producer, Don Fouser, on the set of "The Letters of Calamity Jane," airir* Tuesday, October 13. CBS Cable, the cultural program service, will make its debut Monday, October 12, offering a major group of original programs, featuring international stars in various popular entertainment forms. CBS Cable delivers program­ ming to 250 cable systems in the United States. CBS Cable brings "Calamity Jane" to 250 cable systems Premiering on October 13, CBS Cable presents "The Let­ ters of Calamity Jane," a one- hour program starring award- winning actress Jane Alex­ ander in her one-woman show. The program is based on the funny, passionate and heartwarming diaries aTRj let­ ters of the Wild West's most celebrated woman. The stories of Wild Bill Hickok (the father of her child), Calamity's days as a bar maid and stage­ coach driver and the sorrow that Calamity felt in having to give up her little girl who was back East with a respectable family, are recounted from the first letter to the last lonely note she wrote just before her death. . Jane Alexander, who most recently won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress ia "Playing For Time" with Vanessa Redgrave, was mo­ tivated to portray Calamity because her real-life grand­ father was Buffalo Bill's doc­ tor, and having heard many stories of the West as a child, she was always fascinated by Calamity. "My grandfather knew Bill Hickok, to whom Calamity Jdne says she was married, and so she was always in the fringes of my mind," Alexander said. "I find her an extraordinary human being and I've always been interested in her. "The program is her letters, verbatim, which I act out, at­ tempting to show the dif­ ference between the person and the myth. It's difficult to separate the truth from fiction because she lies in the let­ ters." Alexander explained, "I still don't know for sure exact­ ly what is truth and what is fiction because a lot of the in­ formation about her life has come down second hand. "The most truthful aspect of her letters is her display of very strong, feminine, bio­ logical needs for her daugh­ ter," Jane concluded, "which is overwhelming when you consider the fact that she liv­ ed the life of a man, doing the things that men did, and bet­ ter." The one-hour show spans 30 years of Calamity Jane's life in ten colorful scenes. Between the scenes, there ,.^re historical pictures from her life accompanied by music from that time period. TV COMPULOQ SERVICES, INC.