NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

The COMPTEL Gamma-Ray Sky

This premier gamma-ray view of the sky was produced by the COMPTEL instrument [ http://wwwgro.unh.e…] onboard NASA's orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The entire sky is seen projected on a coordinate system centered on our Milky Way Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] with the plane of the Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] running across the middle of the picture. Gamma-ray intensity is represented by a false color map - low (blue) to high (white). COMPTEL's sensitivity to gamma-rays [ http://wwwgro.unh.e…] which have over 1 million times the energy of visible light photons reveals the locations of some of the Galaxy's most exotic objects. The brightest source, the Crab pulsar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], is located near the plane of the Galaxy on the far right. Moving along the plane from the Crab, more than halfway toward the galactic center, another bright gamma-ray source, the Vela pulsar [ http://heasarc.gsfc…], appears. The galactic center itself, along with the famous black hole candidate Cygnus X-1 [ http://www.owlnet.r…] (near the plane, halfway from the center to the left edge) are also seen as bright sources. Both above and below the plane, spots of gamma-ray emission due to distant active galaxies [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] are also visible.

The COMPTEL Collaboration [ http://wwwgro.unh.e…], Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [ http://heasarc.gsfc…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]

Milky Way Galaxy

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

EGRET

Visible Light

Cygnus

Vela

gamma-ray

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap960529