GLAST Gamma Ray Sky Simulation
Explanation:
This simulated image models the intensities
of gamma rays
with over 40 million times the energy of visible light,
and represents how the sky might appear to the
proposed
Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST)
after its first year in orbit.
Familiar steady stars are absent from
the dramatic 80x80 degree field which looks directly
away from the center of the Galaxy.
Instead,
the Geminga and
Crab pulsars - bizarre, spinning
stellar corpses known to be
neutron stars - are the two brightest
gamma-ray sources.
These and other bright objects in the field,
dense pulsars,
monstrous active galaxies,
and still unknown sources, have been detected by the
Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET)
on the orbiting
Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory.
However, most of the simulated point sources are new - extrapolating
current ideas and anticipating discoveries
resulting from GLAST's
improved gamma-ray vision.
The central broad band of faint gamma-ray emission is
due to high-energy
cosmic rays
colliding with interstellar gas in the outer spiral arms of
the Milky Way, while
below is a diffuse energetic glow from
prominent molecular clouds
in Monoceros, Orion, Auriga, and Taurus.
Intended to explore the most extreme energy sources in
the distant cosmos and planned for launch in 2005,
the
GLAST mission
is
under development by
NASA and a collaboration of U. S. and international partners.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
