HEAPOW: Nine Years of the Milky Way (2012 Jul 30)
Extreme objects in our galaxy, the Milky Way, can be hard to see from their optical emission. However, this weird population may be revealed by the tell-tale X-ray and Gamma-ray radiation they emit. Because of the enormous apparent size of the Milky Way, however, a complete census requires a high-energy telescope possessing a combination of large field of view and longevity. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been scanning the Milky Way at Gamma-ray energies since its launch in 2008, while the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysical Laboratory (INTEGRAL) has been scanning the Milky Way since 2002 at hard X-ray energies. The image above shows the INTEGRAL image of high energy sources in the Milky Way, developed from nine years of observations, in the hard X-ray energy band (35-60 keV band). The brighter sources were detected at a higher significance, and the brightest sources are an assortment of neutron star and black hole systems, supernova remnants, and a few mysterious, as-yet unidentified objects.
INTEGRAL 9-year Galactic Survey
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