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