Credit: F. Lebrun (CEA-Saclay), ESA
Sources in the Mist
A vague glow, like a mist, of soft gamma rays surrounds much of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. The origin of this mist has been a mystery, until new observations with the INTEGRAL Gamma-Ray Observatory helped identify the true nature of this emission. With its fine spatial resolving capability, INTEGRAL has now shown that the diffuse soft gamma-ray emission near the center of the Milky Way is really composed of individual sources, like X-ray binaries, black holes and other objects. The image above is a soft gamma-ray map of the central part of the Milky Way obtained by the IBIS/ISGRI camera on INTEGRAL, showing soft gamma-ray emission from point sources with little contribution from diffuse processes.
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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Tuesday, 27-Feb-2024 10:06:38 EST
