Science: Striking Discovery

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Three times between 1962 and 1965, French astronomers reported that apparently ordinary dwarf stars had emitted extremely bright and unprecedented potassium flares. As evidence, they pointed to three different dwarf-star spectrograms made at the Haute Provence Observatory in Southern France. They showed inexplicably strong potassium-emission lines.

Puzzled, a group of University of California astronomers ran their own tests at California's Lick Observatory. No luck. Then someone had a bright idea. While working with the same spectrographic equipment that the French had used to examine the dwarf starlight, one of the astronomers struck a match. Voilal Potassium lines! The Californians' conclusion, reported in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific: the potassium "flares" were probably produced when French smokers—not dwarf stars—lit up.