Where In The Universe Challenge #8

By Nancy Atkinson - June 11, 2008 at 5:25 PM UTC | uncategorized
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Its time for another "Where in the Universe" challenge. I'll admit, this one is a little unusual. And I'll also admit, the picture here is just part of of a larger image. But, showing the entire image might give it away. Can you guess what this is? This challenge requires high energy for our readers to undertake, I know, and I appreciate everyone who has written to say how much they enjoy "Where in the Universe." We search across the sky, across the galaxy, and across the universe to find unique images, and hopefully this challenge provides a welcome diversion to your day. Have you made a guess, formulated a speculation, or deduced a deduction? Or do you just

know

what this is? No peeking below until your guesses are in....

In honor of the successful launch of GLAST today, this image is in memory of the last orbiting gamma ray telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. This is the all-sky map produced by the EGRET instrument, or the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope. Here's the full image:

This image shows the emissions from interactions between cosmic rays and the interstellar gas along the plane of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Some point sources in this map are pulsars along the plane. For example, the Crab and Geminga pulsars are found near the extreme right side of the EGRET all-sky map. One of the major discoveries made by EGRET is the class of objects known as blazars - these are quasars that emit the majority of their electromagnetic energy in the 30 MeV to 30 GeV portion of the spectrum.

The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was the second of NASA's Great Observatories. Compton was launched on April 5, 1991 aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, and was safely deorbited and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on June 4, 2000.

How'd you do?

Image source:

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory site

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com