gamma-ray astronomy

Study of astronomical objects and phenomena that emit gamma rays. Gamma-ray telescopes are designed to observe high-energy astrophysical systems, including stellar coronas, white dwarf stars, neutron stars, black holes, supernova remnants, clusters of galaxies, and diffuse gamma-ray background radiation found along the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. Because Earth's atmosphere blocks most gamma rays, observations are generally conducted by high-altitude balloons or spacecraft. In the 1960s defense satellites designed to detect X rays and gamma rays from clandestine nuclear testing serendipitously discovered enigmatic gamma-ray bursts coming from deep space. In the 1970s Earth-orbiting observatories found a number of gamma-ray point sources, including an exceptionally strong one, dubbed Geminga, that was later identified as a pulsar, the nearest yet detected. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991, mapped thousands of celestial gamma-ray sources; it also showed that the mysterious bursts are distributed across the sky, implying that their sources are at the distant reaches of the universe rather than in the Milky Way.

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