Nucleosynthesis and astrophysical gamma ray spectroscopy

The HEAO-3 gamma ray spectrometer has provided evidence in the quest for the understanding of complex element formation in the universe with the discovery of Al-26 in the interstellar medium. It has demonstrated that the synthesis of intermediate mass nuclei is currently going on in the galaxy. This discovery was confirmed by the Solar Maximum Mission. The flux is peaked near the galactic center and indicates about 3 solar masses of Al-26 in the interstellar medium, with an implied ratio of Al-26/Al-27 = .00001. Several possible distributions were studied but the data gathered thus far do not allow discrimination between them. It is felt that only the spaceflight of a high resolution gamma ray spectrometer with adequate sensitivity will ultimately resolve the issue of the source of this material.