What would the universe look like if we could see gamma rays? (2 photos + 1 video)

Astrophysicists have created an animation that shows what it looks like our sky in gamma rays. And the Fermi Space Telescope helped them in this.





The radiation emitted by space objects is not limited to visible light - from violet to red. The whole spectrum unfolds from the shortest wavelength of gamma radiation to the longest radio waves Gamma rays are the highest energy perceived by the human eye and, fortunately for us, well absorbed by the earth's atmosphere.

See the Universe in gamma rays and create beautiful animation astrophysicists were helped by the Fermi space gamma-ray telescope. This observatory NASA is outside the atmosphere in low Earth orbit.

The animation is based on observations made observatory during the year from February 2022 to February 2023.



Pulsating purple circles show change brightness of objects in the gamma range: the larger the circle, the brighter the source. Most of the sources are blazars, that is, active galactic nuclei, containing supermassive black holes. Active nuclei produce jets - jets of matter, beating at tremendous speeds approaching the speed of light. If the jet is directed in our direction, the source seems especially bright, this is the blazar. Blazars are one of the most powerful sources of gamma rays in our sky.

The yellow circle moving across the sky is the Sun in its annual movement in the celestial sphere. It is also a source gamma rays.

The orange stripe that runs through the center of the image is gamma radiation of the Milky Way - projections onto the sky of our plane Galaxies. The richer the orange color, the brighter the area in gamma rays.

Modern astronomy has become all-wave. Information, which is fixed by devices in different wavelength ranges, helps astrophysicists to create a more complete picture of the universe and better understand processes taking place in it.