The Gamma Ray Sky
Explanation:
What if you could
see
gamma rays?
If you could, the sky would seem to be filled
with a shimmering high-energy glow from the most exotic and
mysterious
objects in the Universe.
In the early 1990s NASA's
orbiting
Compton Observatory,
produced this premier vista of the entire
sky
in gamma rays,
photons with more than 40 million times the energy of visible
light.
The diffuse gamma-ray glow from the plane of our
Milky Way Galaxy
runs horizontally through the false-color image.
The brightest spots in the galactic plane (right of center)
are
pulsars, spinning
magnetized neutron stars formed in
the violent crucibles of
stellar explosions.
Above and below the plane,
quasars,
believed to be powered by supermassive
black holes, produce gamma-ray beacons at the edges of the universe.
The nature of many
of the fainter sources remains
unknown.
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.
