---
tags:
  - Organization
  - Academic
  - USA
category: "Private Organization"
summary: "The University of California is a public university system whose physics Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez served on the ad hoc expert panel that analyzed VELA satellite data from the suspected 1979 South Atlantic nuclear explosion."
---
The University of California is a public university system in [[California]]. The physics department at the [[University of California]] was home to [[Luis Alvarez]], a Nobel laureate who was a key colleague of [[Jack P. Ruina]] on an ad hoc panel of distinguished scientists tasked with studying the [[VELA Satellite]] data related to a probable nuclear explosion in the South Indian Ocean in 1979.[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20.