Thursday, February 18, 2010

Exploring The High Energy Universe

Science@ESA Vodcast (Episode 5, Part 1): The Untamed, Violent Universe - Exploring The High Energy Universe.



The Science@ESA vodcasts explore the extraordinary Universe in which we live as it is seen through the "eyes" of ESA's fleet of science spacecraft.

In this fifth episode of the Science@ESA vodcast series Rebecca Barnes will give us a glimpse of the hot, energetic and often violent

Universe revealed through X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, look at ESA missions that detect this hidden light and find out how the science that these missions perform is meticulously planned.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Integral/...


What is a gamma-ray? And how does an X-ray in space work?

X-rays and gamma-rays are like the light we can see with our eyes and the radio waves we can detect with radio and TV sets. The only difference is how fast they vibrate.

Radio waves vibrate the most slowly, then microwaves and infra-red (heat) waves, then the colors red to violet, then ultra-violet radiation (which causes sun-burn among other things) then X-rays, and finally (vibrating the most quickly) gamma-rays.

ESA's INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) is detecting some of the most energetic radiation that comes from space. It is the most sensitive gamma-ray observatory ever launched. INTEGRAL is an ESA mission in cooperation with Russia and the United States.

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area...

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