Ray Klebesadel is a scientist, now retired, who was a member of the gamma-ray astronomy

Gamma-ray astronomy

Gamma-ray astronomy is the astronomical study of the cosmos with gamma rays. Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of "light" that travel across the universe, and gamma-rays thus have the smallest wavelength of any wave in the electromagnetic spectrum.Gamma-rays are created by celestial events...

 group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...

 (LANL) in New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 that discovered cosmic gamma-ray bursts using data from the Vela satellites, which were deployed by the United States after the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, to police the ban on nuclear tests in space. The unexplained gamma-ray flashes were first detected in 1967, but remained classified until it was determined that they were of cosmic origin, not related to treaty violations. The discovery was published in 1973 as an Astrophysical Journal

Astrophysical Journal

The Astrophysical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering astronomy and astrophysics. It was founded in 1895 by the American astronomers George Ellery Hale and James Edward Keeler. It publishes three 500-page issues per month....

Letter, co-authored by Ian Strong and Roy Olson also of LANL, entitled "Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin". It was published again in 1976 in the Scientific American.

Klebesadel was selected as a Fellow of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1989.