INTEGRAL deciphers diffuse signature of cosmic-ray electrons
20.05.12
Astronomers exploiting six years worth of data from ESA's INTEGRAL mission have pinned down the individual processes contributing to the high-energy Galactic interstellar emission produced by cosmic-ray electrons. Deciphering each of the different physical mechanisms at play at hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray wavelengths represents a crucial step towards an increasingly detailed picture of the population of high-energy particles permeating the Milky Way.
Cosmic rays are highly-energetic charged particles that pervade galaxies, including our own Galaxy, the Milky Way, and can also escape from them and travel across intergalactic space.
They are important players in regulating global galactic properties such as the heating balance and the total energy budget, and have been subject to intense investigation ever since their discovery in 1912.
Researchers study these particles either directly, by detecting the tracks that arise from collisions with material in the Earth's atmosphere,
Source: Space Daily