Gamma-ray astronomy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Gamma-ray astronomy is the astronomical

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

study of the cosmos

Cosmos

In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...

with gamma rays. Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of "light" (electromagnetic radiation

Electromagnetic radiation

Electromagnetic radiation is a form of energy that exhibits wave-like behavior as it travels through space...

) that travel across the universe, and gamma-rays thus have the smallest wavelength

Wavelength

In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...

of any wave in the electromagnetic spectrum

Electromagnetic spectrum

The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The "electromagnetic spectrum" of an object is the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that particular object....

.

Gamma-rays are created by celestial event

Celestial event

A celestial event is an astronomical phenomenon of interest that involves one or more celestial bodies. Examples of celestial events include the various phases of the Moon, meteor showers, comets, solar and lunar eclipses, planetary oppositions, conjunctions, and occultations....

s such as supernova

Supernova

A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...

explosions, destruction of positron

Positron

The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1e, a spin of ½, and has the same mass as an electron...

s, creation of black hole

Black hole

A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...

s and even the decay of radioactive material

Radioactive decay

Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...

(gamma decay) in space. For example, supernova SN 1987A

SN 1987A

SN 1987A was a supernova in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy. It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs from Earth, approximately 168,000 light-years, close enough that it was visible to the naked eye. It could be seen from the Southern...

emitted an "afterglow" of gamma-ray photons from the decay of newly-made radioactive cobalt-56 ejected into space in a cloud, by the explosion. Most astronomical gamma-rays are thought to be produced not from radioactive decay, however, but from the same type of accelerations of electrons, and electron-photon interactions, that produce X-rays in astronomy (but occurring at a higher energy in the production of gamma-rays). Astronomical literature tends to hyphenate "gamma-ray" by analogy with the term "X-ray."

Early history

Long before experiments could detect gamma ray

Gamma ray

Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency . Gamma rays are usually naturally produced on Earth by decay of high energy states in atomic nuclei...

s emitted by cosmic sources, scientists had known that the universe should be producing these photon

Photon

In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic interaction and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is also the force carrier for the electromagnetic force...

s. Work by Eugene Feenberg

Eugene Feenberg

Eugene Feenberg was an American physicist who made contributions to quantum mechanics and nuclear physics.-Education:...

and Henry Primakoff

Henry Primakoff

Henry Primakoff was a theoretical physicist who is famous for his discovery of the Primakoff effect....

in 1948, Sachio Hayakawa and I.B. Hutchinson in 1952, and, especially, Philip Morrison

Philip Morrison

Philip Morrison, was Institute Professor Emeritus and Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .-Early life and education:...

in 1958 had led scientists to believe that a number of different processes which were occurring in the universe would result in gamma-ray emission. These processes included cosmic ray

Cosmic ray

Cosmic rays are energetic charged subatomic particles, originating from outer space. They may produce secondary particles that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The term ray is historical as cosmic rays were thought to be electromagnetic radiation...

interactions with interstellar gas, supernova

Supernova

explosions, and interactions of energetic electron

Electron

The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...

s with magnetic field

Magnetic field

A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...

s. However, it was not until the 1960s that our ability to actually detect these emissions came to pass.

Most gamma rays coming from space are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so gamma-ray astronomy could not develop until it was possible to get detectors above all or most of the atmosphere using balloon

Balloon

A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...

s and spacecraft. The first gamma-ray telescope carried into orbit, on the Explorer 11 satellite in 1961, picked up fewer than 100 cosmic gamma-ray photons. They appeared to come from all directions in the Universe, implying some sort of uniform "gamma-ray background". Such a background would be expected from the interaction of cosmic rays (very energetic charged particles in space) with interstellar gas.

The first true astrophysical gamma-ray sources were solar flares, which revealed the strong 2.223 MeV line predicted by Morrison. This line results from the formation of deuterium via the union of a neutron and proton; in a solar flare the neutrons appear as secondaries from interactions of high-energy ions accelerated in the flare process. These first gamma-ray line observations were from OSO-3, OSO-7, and the Solar Maximum Mission

Solar Maximum Mission

The Solar Maximum Mission satellite was designed to investigate solar phenomenon, particularly solar flares. It was launched on February 14, 1980....

, the latter spacecraft launched in 1980. The solar observations inspired theoretical work by Reuven Ramaty

Reuven Ramaty

Reuven Ramaty was a pioneer in the fields of solar physics, gamma-ray astronomy, nuclear astrophysics, and cosmic rays. He was a HESSI Co-Investigator and one of the founding members of the HESSI team. His active involvement and enthusiastic support were critical for HESSI’s selection by NASA as...

and others.

Significant gamma-ray emission from our galaxy was first detected in 1967 by the detector aboard the OSO-3 satellite. It detected 621 events attributable to cosmic gamma rays. However, the field of gamma-ray astronomy took great leaps forward with the SAS-2

Second Small Astronomy Satellite

The Small Astronomy Satellite 2, also known also as SAS-2, SAS B or Explorer 48, was a NASA gamma ray telescope. It was launched on 15 November 1972 into low Earth orbit with a periapsis of 443 km and an apoapsis of 632 km...

(1972) and the COS-B

Cos-B

Cos-B was the first European Space Research Organisation mission to study gamma-ray sources. COS-B was first put forward by the European scientific community in the mid 1960s and approved by the ESRO council in 1969. The mission consisted of a satellite containing gamma-ray detectors, which was...

(1975–1982) satellites. These two satellites provided an exciting view into the high-energy universe (sometimes called the 'violent' universe, because the kinds of events in space that produce gamma rays tend to be high-speed collisions and similar processes). They confirmed the earlier findings of the gamma-ray background, produced the first detailed map of the sky at gamma-ray wavelengths, and detected a number of point sources. However the resolution of the instruments was insufficient to identify most of these point sources with specific visible stars or stellar systems.

Gamma-ray discoveries

A discovery in gamma-ray astronomy came in the late 1960s and early 1970s from a constellation of military defense satellites. Detectors on board the Vela

Vela (satellite)

Vela was the name of a group of satellites developed as the Vela Hotel element of Project Vela by the United States to monitor compliance with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty by the Soviet Union, and other nuclear-capable states. It means vigil or "watch" in Spanish.Vela started out as a small...

satellite series, designed to detect flashes of gamma rays from nuclear bomb blasts, began to record bursts of gamma rays from deep space rather than the vicinity of the Earth. Later detectors determined that these gamma-ray burst

Gamma ray burst

Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several minutes, although a typical...

s are seen to last for fractions of a second to minutes, appearing suddenly from unexpected directions, flickering, and then fading after briefly dominating the gamma-ray sky. Studied since the mid-1980s with instruments on board a variety of satellites and space probes, including Soviet Venera

Venera

The Venera series probes were developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus, Venera being the Russian name for Venus...

spacecraft and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter, the sources of these enigmatic high-energy flashes remain a mystery. They appear to come from far away in the Universe, and currently the most likely theory seems to be that at least some of them come from so-called hypernova
Hypernova
Hypernova , also known as a type 1c Supernova, refers to an incredibly large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan...

explosions—supernovas creating black hole

Black hole

s rather than neutron star

Neutron star

A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and with a slightly larger...

s.

In November 2010, using the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, two gigantic gamma-ray bubbles were detected at the heart of our galaxy

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

. These bubbles appear as a mirror image

Mirror image

A mirror image is a reflected duplication of an object that appears identical but reversed. As an optical effect it results from reflection off of substances such as a mirror or water. It is also a concept in geometry and can be used as a conceptualization process for 3-D structures...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5161800891/sizes/l/in/photostream/ of each other. These bubbles of high-energy radiation are suspected as erupting from a massive black hole

Black hole

or evidence of a burst of star formations from millions of years ago. These bubbles have been measured and span 25,000 light-year

Light-year

A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...

s across. They were discovered after scientists filtered out the "fog of background gamma-rays suffusing the sky". This discovery confirmed previous clues that a large unknown "structure" was in the center of the Milky Way

Milky Way

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...

Balloon flights

On June 19, 1988, from Birigüi

Birigüi

Birigüi is a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The city is located on the northwest of the state and has 108,728 inhabitants and 530.9 km² of area...

(50° 20' W 21° 20' S) at 10:15 UTC a balloon launch occurred which carried two NaI(Tl) detectors (600 cm² total area) to an air pressure altitude of 5.5 mb for a total observation time of 6 hr. The supernova

Supernova

SN1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs , the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer to the center...

(LMC) was discovered on February 23, 1987, and its progenitor is a blue supergiant

Supergiant

Supergiants are among the most massive stars. They occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. In the Yerkes spectral classification, supergiants are class Ia or Ib . They typically have bolometric absolute magnitudes between -5 and -12...

(Sk -69 202) with luminosity of 2-5 x 10³⁸ erg/s. The 847 keV and 1238 keV gamma-ray lines from ⁵⁶Co decay have been detected.

Solar flares

A solar flare

Solar flare

A solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 1025 joules of energy . The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day...

is an explosion in a solar atmosphere and was originally detected visually in our own sun. Solar flares create massive amounts of radiation across the full electromagnetic spectrum from the longest wavelength, radio waves

Radio waves

Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum longer than infrared light. Radio waves have frequencies from 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz, and corresponding wavelengths from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. Like all other electromagnetic waves,...

, to high energy gamma rays. The correlations of the high energy electrons energized during the flare and the gamma rays are mostly caused by nuclear combinations of high energy protons and other heavier ions. These gamma-rays can be observed and allow scientists to determine the major results of the energy released, which is not provided by the emissions from other wavelengths.
Nuclear gamma ray

Gamma ray

s were observed from the solar flare

Solar flare

s of August 4 and 7, 1972, and November 22, 1977.

Recent and current observatories

During its High Energy Astronomy Observatory

High Energy Astronomy Observatory

High Energy Astrophysics Observatory can refer to:*1st High Energy Astronomy Observatory *Einstein Observatory *3rd High Energy Astronomy Observatory *HEAO Program...

program in 1977, NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

announced plans to build a "great observatory" for gamma-ray astronomy. The Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) was designed to take advantage of the major advances in detector technology during the 1980s, and was launched in 1991. The satellite carried four major instruments which have greatly improved the spatial and temporal resolution of gamma-ray observations. The CGRO provided large amounts of data which are being used to improve our understanding of the high-energy processes in our Universe. CGRO was de-orbited in June 2000 as a result of the failure of one of its stabilizing gyroscope

Gyroscope

A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...

s.

BeppoSAX

BeppoSAX

BeppoSAX was an Italian–Dutch satellite for X-ray astronomy which played a crucial role in resolving the origin of gamma-ray bursts , the most energetic events known in the universe...

was launched in 1996 and deorbited in 2003.
It predominantly studied X-rays, but also observed gamma-ray bursts.
By identifying the first non-gamma ray counterparts to gamma-ray bursts, it opened the way for their precise position determination and optical observation of their fading remnants in distant galaxies.
The High Energy Transient Explorer

High Energy Transient Explorer

The High Energy Transient Explorer was an American astronomical satellite with international participation . The prime objective of HETE was to carry out the first multiwavelength study of gamma-ray bursts with UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray instruments mounted on a single, compact spacecraft...

2 (HETE-2) was launched in October 2000 (on a nominally 2 yr mission) and was still operational in March 2007.
Swift

Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission

The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission consists of a robotic spacecraft called Swift, which was launched into orbit on 20 November 2004, 17:16:00 UTC on a Delta II 7320-10C expendable launch vehicle. Swift is managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and was developed by an international...

, a NASA spacecraft, was launched in 2004 and carries the BAT instrument for gamma-ray burst observations.
Following BeppoSAX and HETE-2, it has observed numerous x-ray and optical counterparts to bursts, leading to distance determinations and detailed optical follow-up.
These have established that most bursts originate in the explosions of massive stars (supernova

Supernova

s and hypernova

Hypernova

Hypernova , also known as a type 1c Supernova, refers to an incredibly large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan...

s) in distant galaxies.

Currently the main space-based gamma-ray observatories are the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, (INTEGRAL

INTEGRAL

The European Space Agency's INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory is an operational Earth satellite, launched in 2002 for detecting some of the most energetic radiation that comes from space. It is the most sensitive gamma ray observatory ever launched.INTEGRAL is an ESA mission in...

), and Fermi.
INTEGRAL is an ESA mission with additional contributions from Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, Poland, USA and Russia.
It was launched on 17 October 2002.
NASA launched Fermi on 11 June 2008.
It includes LAT, the Large Area Telescope, and GBM, the GLAST Burst Monitor, for studying gamma-ray bursts.

Very energetic gamma rays, with photon energies over ~30 GeV, can also be detected by ground based experiments.
The extremely low photon fluxes at such high energies require detector effective areas that are impractically large for current space-based instruments.
Fortunately such high-energy photons produce extensive showers of secondary particles in the atmosphere that can be observed on the ground, both directly by radiation counters and optically
via the Cherenkov light

Cherenkov radiation

Cherenkov radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium...

the ultra-relativistic shower particles emit.
The Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope

IACT

The IACT or Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique is the method whereby very high energy gamma-ray photons in the 50 GeV to 50 TeV range can be detected by ground based telescopes. There are currently four major ground based telescopes including CANGAROO III, MAGIC, HESS and VERITAS...

technique currently achieves the highest sensitivity. The Crab Nebula

Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus...

, a steady source of so called TeV gamma-rays, was first detected in 1989 by the Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, in Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

in the USA.
Modern Cherenkov telescope experiments like H.E.S.S.

High Energy Stereoscopic System

High Energy Stereoscopic System or H.E.S.S. is a next-generation system of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes for the investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the 100 GeV and TeV energy range...

, VERITAS

VERITAS

VERITAS is a major ground-based gamma-ray observatory with an array of four 12m optical reflectors for gamma-ray astronomy in the GeV - TeV energy range. The telescope design is based on the design of the existing 10m gamma-ray telescope of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory...

, MAGIC

MAGIC (telescope)

MAGIC is a system of two Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes situated at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, at about 2200 m above sea level...

, and CANGAROO III can detect the Crab Nebula in a few minutes.
The most energetic photons (up to 16 TeV

TEV

TEV may refer to:* TeV, or teraelectronvolt, a measure of energy* Total Enterprise Value, a financial measure* Total Economic Value, an economic measure* Tobacco etch virus, a plant pathogenic virus of the family Potyviridae....

) observed from an extragalactic object originate from the blazar

Blazar

A blazar is a very compact quasar associated with a presumed supermassive black hole at the center of an active, giant elliptical galaxy...

Markarian 501 (Mrk 501).
These measurements were done by the High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy (HEGRA

HEGRA

HEGRA, which stands for High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy, was an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for Gamma-ray astronomy. With its various types of detectors, HEGRA took data between 1987 and 2002, at which point it was dismantled in order to build its successor, MAGIC, at the same site.It was...

) air Cherenkov telescopes.

Gamma-ray astronomy observations are still limited by non-gamma ray backgrounds at lower energies, and, at higher energy, by the number of photons that can be detected. Larger area detectors and better background suppression are essential for progress in the field.

External links

A History of Gamma-Ray Astronomy Including Related Discoveries
The HEGRA Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope System
The HESS Ground Based Gamma-Ray Experiment
The MAGIC Telescope Project
The VERITAS Ground Based Gamma-Ray Experiment
The space-borne INTEGRAL observatory
NASA's Swift gamma-ray burst mission
NASA HETE-2 satellite
TeVCat, a TeV gamma-ray sources catalog.
GammaLib, a versatile toolbox for high-level analysis of astronomical gamma-ray data.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early history

Gamma-ray discoveries

Balloon flights

Solar flares

Recent and current observatories

See also

External links