Limning full sky in a gamma-ray glow.Astronomers last week unveiled the first full-sky map of the heavens aglow in the light of gamma rays Gamma rays Electromagnetic radiation emitted from excited atomic nuclei as an integral part of the process whereby the nucleus rearranges itself into a state of lower excitation (that is, energy content). , the cosmos' most energetic radiation. Generated by data from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory's (GRO GRO Guerrero (Estado de México) GRO General Register Office (UK) GRO Greater Research Opportunities GRO Gamma Ray Observatory GRO Growth-Related Oncogene GRO Greensboro, North Carolina ) EGRET telescope, the map depicts emissions with an energy greater than 100 million electron-volts. White denotes highest intensity, blue the lowest. The horizontal swath shows gamma-ray sources, including several known pulsars, in our galaxy's plane. Above and below the plane, the map reveals more distant sources, mostly quasars and quasar-like objects called blazars. Carl E. Fichtel of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Md., presented the map at a meeting of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society was founded in 1899 and is the world's second largest organization of physicists. The Society publishes more than a dozen science journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than twenty science in Washington, D. C Researchers also reported that GRO had detected a champ among gamma-ray bursts: a flash with the highest energy and intensity ever observed. Dubbed the Super Bowl burst because of its discovery on Super Bowl Sunday (Jan. 31.), this one-second cosmic flashbulb overwhelmed GRO detectors designed to record its intensity Up to 100 seconds after the burst, EGRET detected a photon afterglow afterglow small amounts of light emitted by a phosphor after the stimulating radiation has ceased. Seen in x-ray intensifying screens and fluoroscopic screens. that at times reached energies of a billion electron-volts. Astronomers searched for evidence of a counterpart to the burst at other wavelengths, but the flash's origin, like others, remains a mystery |
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