Developments in Brief : Japanese Satellite to Hunt for Black Holes

Japan has launched an astronomical satellite that may provide the first glimpse of such mysteries as black holes in space and neutron stars, that country’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science said.

The 924-pound Ginga, which means galaxy, was launched atop an M3-S2 rocket from Kagoshima Space Center in southern Japan and went into orbit 375 miles above the Earth, an institute official said.

Ginga will be the world’s only deep-space probe in orbit through the early 1990s, when the United States and the European Space Agency are scheduled to launch big X-ray satellites to track down black holes and neutron stars, he said.