An unusual hard x-ray source in the region of SN 1987A

An unusual hard x-ray source was discovered in the region of SN 1987A from the x-ray astronomy satellite Ginga. The error box of 0.2 degrees x 0.3 degrees includes the supernova. The energy spectrum is very hard above 10 keV and quite unusual for any of the known classes of x-ray source. The source intensity showed a steady increase from July through August till early September, while no further increase was seen in the observations in late September and mid-October. The positional agreement, a steady brightening and an unusual hard spectrum argue for this source being SN 1987A. The flux in the range 10--30 keV on September 2--3 when the source was brightest is approximately 5 x 10- 11 ergs/cm2s