The New Gamma‐Ray Astronomy
DOI: 10.1063/1.882139
Our understanding of the gamma‐ray sky is being revolutionized. Seven years ago, gamma‐ray astronomers knew of only a scattering of very bright sources. Now, thanks to two international observatories, the gamma‐ray sky appears to be teeming with variety—unstable sources that change violently on short time scales, steady sources that glow radioactively and others whose nature we barely understand.
References
1. Proceedings of the Fourth Compton Symposium, C. D. Dermer, M. S. Strickman, J. D. Kurfess, eds., AIP Proceedings vol. 410, AIP Press, Woodbury, N.Y. (1997).
2. E. M. Burbidge, G. R. Burbidge, W. A. Fowler, R. Hoyle, Rev. Mod. Phys. 29, 597 (1957).
3. I. F. Mirabel, L. F. Rodriguez, B. Cordier, J. Paul, F. Lebrun, Nature 358, 215 (1992).https://doi.org/NATUAS
4. S. N. Zhang, W. Cui, W. Chen, Astrophys. J. 482, L155 (1997).https://doi.org/ASJOAB
5. For results on gamma‐ray bursters from BATSE, see C. Kouveliotou, M. F. Briggs, G. F. Fishman, eds., in Gamma‐Ray Bursts: Third Huntsville Symp., AIP Conf. Proc. 384, AIP Press, Woodbury, N.Y. (1996),
and in two “Search and Discovery” articles in PHYSICS TODAY: February 1992, p. 24,
and April 1994, p. 17.6. F. Hoyle, W. A. Fowler, in Quasi‐Stellar Sources and Gravitational Collapse, I. Robinson, A. Schild, E. L. Schucking, eds., U. Chicago P., Chicago (1965), p. 17.
7. E. E. Salpeter, Astrophys. J. 140, 796 (1964).https://doi.org/ASJOAB
8. D. Lynden‐Bell, Nature 223, 610 (1969).https://doi.org/NATUAS
9. M. J. Rees, Nature 229, 312 (1971).
10. C. Winkler, Astron. Astrophys. Supp. 120, 637 (1996).
More about the Authors
Neil Gehrels. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
Jacques Paul. Saclay Nuclear Research Center, Gifsur‐Yvette, France.