Credit: A. Bazzano, A. Paizis and the INTEGRAL Science Team; ESA
INTEGRAL Spots a Burst
The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (known as INTEGRAL) was launched by the European Space Agency on 17 October 2002. INTEGRAL was designed to obtain high spatial and spectral resolution observations of Gamma-ray sources. So far, INTEGRAL has been extraordinarily blest - barely one month after launch INTEGRAL spotted one of the most energetic events in the Universe, a Gamma-Ray burst. Gamma-Ray bursts are thought to occur by the formation of black holes in distant galaxies. The burst which INTEGRAL saw occurred on November 25, 2002. INTEGRAL saw the burst in it's imager, named
IBIS and, though still in its instrumental check-out phase, was able to localize the burst position to about 2 minutes of arc. The picture above is an image of the burst obtained by INTEGRAL, along with an artist's impression of what such an explosion might look like up close.
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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified January 20, 2003
